Sparks, Flames, Embers
by Margo Vizzini-Montoya
Summary: From out of the ashes of grief and heartache spring – or in this case, ignite – hope and love. Modern day AU. The college years. The five or ten year reunion. The hook-ups, the break-ups, and all the drama before, during, and after. Enjoy.
1. One Night(s) Stand

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

 **Author's note:** Hello, I am Margot, and I am a Cartson addict. I honestly tried to branch out into another 'verse, but this pairing sucked me in once again, and I could not resist.

My **Disclaimers** :as you can tell, Agent Carter is so not mine & characters are only slightly (I hope) OOC due to Modern day setting and therefore culture

My Warning - **Rating: M, very very M** due to explicit sexual descriptions, the dropping of the F-bomb and other salty sailor language, frequent imbibing of alcoholic beverages by the characters, and overall smutty smut smutness of most of the chapters' content. You have been warned.

If none of this has scared you off, my dear reader, then sit back, relax, and enjoy ; )

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Chapter 1: One Night(s) Stand

* * *

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Peggy didn't quite wake with a start at the sound of her incessant phone alarm. She did, however, begin mumble cursing the day – which wasn't all that unusual for a Monday morning.

What was unusual was the groggy voice who cursed next to her.

"Marge, if you don't want to add a new goddamn phone to your bloody Christmas list, turn that shit off."

That _was_ unusual. In fact, all sorts of things were unusual. And wrong. _So_ wrong. And her half-asleep brain couldn't quite keep up.

One, her phone was not on the night stand to the right of her bed. In fact, there was no night stand to the right of the bed, just a pile of textbooks _and_ it was not her bed.

Two, her phone was… her phone was… There! Stowed safely away in her purse next to the stack of textbooks. The memory of why she needed to safeguard it came flooding back along with…

Three, _he_ , the warm _male_ body that was next to her, had called her 'Marge'. Only one man was brazenly stupid enough to insist on a pet name, especially _that_ pet name, and _she_ was in _his_ bed.

And had been for two whole days.

Well, not _just_ the bed, if she were to be completely honest.

Oh bloody hell she did not have time for this.

When all of this finally got done computing in her brain, her body and mind both became fully awake. It would have been the perfect cold shower, if her blasted sensory recall was not torturing her with very hot memory flashes of what she had done and who she had done it with this weekend.

"Hey, you know we don't have classes today. Finals were last week. It's Christmas break," Jack Thompson rasped lazily from the bed. Apparently, her frantic attempt to get dressed and exit quickly as possible had not been conducive to him going back to sleep after she finally managed to turn the alarm off.

Peggy paused in her search for her other shoe to look back at him. He painted the perfect picture of temptation, as he lay there sprawled invitingly in bed, all lean, muscular, and golden, his normally well-styled hair all sex-mussed, his face covered in stubble, and his blue eyes impossibly both dark with lust and twinkly bright with satisfaction.

If she had been any other girl, she would have caved and crawled right back into bed for a third day. But she wasn't, she was Peggy Carter, and that crooked, self-satisfied grin of his was not enough of a turn-on to overcome her willpower.

Spotting her shoe under his jacket on the floor by the door, she scrambled for it while muttering, "I know all of that. Hence your frat's party, which led to this – this… well all of all this." God she needed her breakfast tea and fast. Her non-caffeinated eloquence was astounding in its deficiency. "But Angie will be back from her Christmas parties and her Sunday family extravaganza, and I don't want to explain where I have been."

"Why, Marge, are you ashamed of me?" he drawled.

She straightened up from putting on her shoe and fixed him with a _Look_.

With her chin high and her eyes narrowed, she declared firmly, "I am most definitely _not_. I am a grown woman and can sleep with whomever I choose. And I chose you."

The pained expression that had been hiding in his eyes and the hunched-ness of his shoulders disappeared at her words. The bizarre relief she felt at that sight helped her forgive him for his next cock-sure words:

"More than once, if I recall, and sober too, at least for part of it."

"You recall correctly," she sighed.

"But…?"

"But Angie is a gossip, and as hard as she will try to keep this to herself, she will drop enough hints to mutual friends of ours, which will necessitate some awkward explanations on my part and I'd rather not go through that. I want to keep my private life private."

He eyed her speculatively for a moment, and then with a nod said, "You're not a kiss-and-tell kind of girl. I can respect that."

"You can?"

"Sure thing, Carter."

She stared at him expectantly for a moment, waiting for an insult. There was always at least one in every conversation that they had.

When none came, she went over to collect her purse, leaned down and kissed him on the stubbled cheek, whispering gratefully, "Thanks, Jack," before letting herself out.

~A~

 _The previous Friday night…_

"So, Marge, where is your lesser half?"

Peggy groaned, perhaps mentally, perhaps not. She really didn't care for the feelings of the male half of the species this night, and hardly ever for this particular specimen.

She downed her shot of whiskey (none of those holiday frou-frou drinks, thank you very much) and turned to face the bane of her existence, who had somehow found her amidst the chaos of collegiate revelers – beer pong enthusiasts, half-sloshed and out of tune karaoke Christmas carolers, and pool-side dancers.

"As I have never had another half, lesser or otherwise, I am not sure who or what you are talking about, Thompson."

"Oh, don't be coy, Carter," he mock-chided as he leaned against the bar next to her. "You know what I mean, that Wilkes chap. The physics major? Tall, dark, handsome and a high I.Q. to match?"

"Oh him. Dunno know," she said with a nonchalant shrug. It was a bald-faced lie. She did know. He had gone home for the holidays, and she was not to call or message him. He had made that abundantly clear.

She signaled for a double shot to the bartender that the Sigma Sigma Rho fraternity had hired for their annual Fall Finals are Finished Fiesta, but when she found Jack still standing there next to her and looking … not concerned, but at least for once non-judgmental, she blurted:

"Have you ever been dumped?"

The moment the words were out of her mouth she regretted it. She expected him to laugh, to make some pompous caustic remark like 'are you kidding me? I am Jack bloody Thompson', or worse, to make some smart-arse comment about how she must be the poor sad pathetic dumpee, who was stereotypically trying to get wasted, laid or both to forget her woes. (She wasn't. She was just here at the loudest party she could think of, where she could be distracted and not technically be alone).

He did none of those things however. Instead, he surprised her with, "Yeah, I was once. Freshman year. Long distance relationship with a girl who went to Berkeley. She decided she didn't want to date someone who was so far away and who wanted to go into 'the corrupt tyrannical institution' that was law enforcement."

Normally, she would have made some rejoinder like 'so you chased after badge bunnies instead, huh?', but she was loathe to break this bizarre truce that they had. If he wasn't going to kick her while she was down, she would do the same. So she said nothing.

After a few companionable moments of silence, while she sat there nursing her whiskey and he, his beer, he finally broke it with a musing, "Huh, I was right about him being your lesser half. I knew that Wilkes fellow was all book smarts and not a lick of common sense."

She arched a questioning eyebrow.

Being familiar with this expression, he answered smugly, "Well, any guy who would let you go is either insane or just plain dumb. And from what it sounds like, he didn't let you down easy but flat out dumped you. That just goes to show he has no sense of self-preservation."

Peggy didn't know whether to feel chuffed at the idea that Jack Thompson, her arch-rival and Lehigh University's legendary catch-and-release Casanova, thought her as a 'keeper' or at the idea that he found her so intimidating.

Before she could decide how to exactly reply, he continued, "So for what reason did he brave the wrath of Peggy Carter?"

Whether it was the combination of the truth serum qualities of the liquor and his excellent buttering up skills or her desire to get the truth out there before he came up with some reason of his own – like she was frigid in bed or some such nonsense, she told him.

"He felt that I cared more about my career than our relationship…"

He had accused her of always complaining about Jack Thompson being an asshole and how he was going to ruin her chances at getting the coveted F.B.I. internship nomination and never caring about his worries about how he never got enough lab time to work on his capstone project because the wife of one of the faculty members was always given preferential treatment.

This was patently untrue of course. She had gone out of her way to delay Whitney Frost and shorten her times in the labs as much as possible so that he could slip in ahead or after her, and made such a nuisance of herself with the Dean about Professor Chadwick's tendency towards nepotism that she had nearly jeopardized her own good standing with the faculty.

"… and he resented the fact that I didn't want to spend the break with him and meeting his family or having him come home with me to meet mine. I thought it was too soon and he thought six months was soon enough."

There was a brief pause in which he said nothing, and she found herself holding her breath like a convicted felon at a sentencing hearing, and then…

"Dumbass."

He said it so deadpan and with such a perfect imitation of his mentor Vernon Masters that she found herself nearly snorting her whiskey.

After he awkwardly patted her back to help her get over her sputtering-coughing fit, he ordered her another shot to replace hers, and then the rest of night he hung out with her.

They poked fun at the off-key karaoke carolers, most of whom were from one of the university's sororities, the one that wore a lot of pink and who were really there for their Mrs. degrees.

They danced. They challenged each other to darts. And they flirted. Mostly, he whispered dirty jokes and made insinuations that Jason was sexually intimidated by her and that Jack was 'up' for the challenge.

And as she was never one to back down from any kind of challenge, she took him up on his offer. After making sure no one was in his room and the door was locked, the figurative gloves came off along with literally everything else.

~A~

 _The following Saturday morning…_

Peggy was awoken for the third time by the tiny sound of the _Invisible Man_ 's theme song.

The first time she had roused just enough to catch its last few bars before it went to voicemail.

The second time, she made the conscious choice to let it do so, and when Thompson groaned a _"What the fuck, Carter?"_ she managed to croak: "Let…voicemail…wanker'll get … picture…"

She then promptly burrowed deeper into the covers. She wasn't about to get off the Big "O" Bliss Train for the next stop of Hangovers-ville, especially not for Mr. Doesn't-Want-to-be-Seen But-Apparently-Wants-to-be-Heard.

This time though she realized that the bloody bastard was going to win.

"Who the _fuck_ is that, Carter?"

"Wilkes. Ugh, what the hell does he want at - " she paused to crack open one eye and peer at the clock on his desk that was half-covered by one of their shirts, "- something-thirty in the morning?"

"He probably wants you back. Do you want me to take care of it?"

"It's in my jacket pocket."

Too late she realized that providing the location of the offensive device did not also communicate 'and bring it to me' or 'hang up and silence the goddamn thing'. Before she could rectify her error, he was answering.

"Carter's phone."

There was a brief pause, in which she could partly make out an irritated demanding grumble from the other end. Jack did not let him finish though, before he cut him off with:

"Who this is, is none of your business, especially not after you called it quits."

Another pause, this one even more irate. By now Peggy had managed to roll over and look at Jack, who was sneering at her phone so fiercely it was practically a snarl. She discovered in that moment that his sneer/snarl was much more attractive when it wasn't aimed at her, and especially when it was aimed _for_ her.

"I _do_ say so. Now fuck off. She's now with someone who can make her happy and who will put her needs before his own."

He then hung up on Jason and threw the phone at his desk, missing it but (hopefully) not breaking it. She didn't have a chance to check though because he then drew her to him and made good on his promise.

He made her happy _several_ times, and he didn't come once before her, _all_ weekend long.


	2. Overcoming Baggage

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 2: Overcoming Baggage

* * *

 **Jack:** _Feeling frisky? Round 2. My place._

Peggy stared at the text dumbfounded.

She knew that he was a cocky bastard and so it should not surprise her that he would be such a bold, brazen son of a bitch and booty-text her. But somehow it did.

She snuck a peek at it again. Yep, it was there.

Was he playing games with her? Or was he that full of himself that he would think she would want to have a go at him again? If she replied 'yes', would he revert back to his 90s childhood and reply 'Psych! Ha ha'? Did she want to inflate his big head more than it already was? It might fall off, which would be a shame (in either sense of the word). If she replied 'no' or some other sassy retort as soon as she could come up with one, did she want to risk the chance of closing the door on a potentially mutually satisfying relationship?

While she debated with herself, she half-listened to Howard's and Jarvis's own hushed debate.

"No, a flamingo is not a suitable pet. For one, it is illegal…"

Yeah, not something she needed to contribute to. She pretended to be reading through her class notes just in case they glanced her way, but they were more concerned about attracting the notice of the militant librarian Mrs. Frye than anything else.

Normally, she didn't do no-strings-attached relationships. Sex changed everything, at least in her experience. But with Jack, to her amazement, it hadn't.

The Tuesday after that weekend, she had flown to London to join her parents who were visiting her mother's family for the holidays. She had endured for a week her mother's laments that it looked like she wouldn't be having grandchildren anytime soon seeing as she was boyfriend-less (thank God she had never told her about Jason) as well as her complaints about her changing her major from pre-Law to criminal justice ( _"It's just a far less lucrative and more dangerous career path, my dear!"_ ), and then she had escaped to (well, er…flown back for) her winter classes.

She shared one of those courses with Daniel, Jack's dorm-mate and her friend. As was their custom, they teamed up on class projects, and when she had gone over to work on it with him, Jack had been there.

He lounged. He annoyed. They exchanged their usual insults. He called her 'Velma'. She equated him to some obscure British literature character that insinuated that he possessed below-average intelligence and that he would no doubt have to Google later, and Daniel told them both to 'give it a rest already'. It had almost been comfortable in its familiarity.

"Hey, Peggy, whatcha thinkin' so hard about over there?" Howard cut into her reverie, apparently, finally conceding to Jarvis' request to return the flamingo hatchling that he had won at an underground card game in Vegas.

Without thinking, she replied honestly, "Why is it again that we all detest Thompson so much?"

If it was quiet in the library before, one could hear a pin drop in it now, and if she hadn't been berating herself for her stupidity for asking such a question, she might have laughed at the almost cartoonish matching bug-eyed expressions the pair of them had.

"Uh…I don't know, Peggy. Is it because is it because he is a smug son of a bitch? A male chauvinistic bastard? A brown nosing glory hound? If we're not judging him by his character attributes, then how about his actions? How about he doesn't know when he's crossed the line and taken a prank too far or playful banter to truly insulting? How about he holds one hell of a grudge that he not only nearly got me kicked out of the school with his accusations of unethical behavior but he also tried to take you down with me?"

And when Howard finally paused in his rant for breath, Edwin interjected, "And let us not forget how he tries to sabotage you at every turn so that he can knock you out of the running for that internship."

"Oh right, yeah. Thanks, guys," she conceded, not really having anything to say to counter their mostly valid points.

In her sophomore year of undergrad, she had changed her major from pre-Law to Criminal Justice. After Steve had been killed by terrorists, her career goal had become being an F.B.I agent in its counter-terrorist division. (She wasn't so revenge thirsty that she wanted to make the leap into the deep dark side of the intelligence community, a.k.a. C.I.A.). The best way to get on the fast track for that division was to be nominated by the Dean and the Criminal Justice Department-head for the junior year summer internship at Quantico.

It was an internship for one, and Jack Thompson had been favored for that honor by Dooley since day one in Intro to Criminology, or so Daniel had told her. Thompson had sensed from the start that she would make him work for it and had not liked it one little bit, especially when she began to show him up in classes. He went on the offensive the best way he could – by ostracizing her further from her peers who were disproportionately all male by demeaning her insights as "only women's intuition".

Howard in retaliation had broken into the Sigma Sigma Rho fraternity house during pledge week and made a fool out of Jack in front of the pledge class.

Thompson had seized his moment of revenge when he had thought that he had found evidence that Howard was hacking into professors' files, stealing their exams and answer keys, and selling them to classmates. The icing on the cake had been when Daniel had informed his roommate that he had seen her talking to one of the suspected cheaters. Thompson had then accused her of intimidating people who could implicate Howard.

She had in fact been investigating on her friend's behalf. Eventually, she had been able prove his innocence by supplying enough evidence that it had been one of Howard's many female conquests who had stolen his code and used it for her personal gain. She had never been able to sufficiently prove which one though, especially since she ( _*cough*_ _Dottie *cough*_ ) was protected by Professor Fennhoff, whom she was a research assistant for.

Nevertheless, the unfounded accusations and the poor sportsmanship (on his part) of their rivalry were two things that Howard, and Edwin the loyal dear, could never forgive him for. She herself was still struggling with it, now that she thought about it all again.

Her walk down memory lane was interrupted by the inevitable question: "Why do you ask?"

"Yeah, what he said," Howard seconded, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

She shrugged, "Eh, he was surprisingly nice to me the night that Jason broke up with me, at the frat party. I was just wondering if maybe I wasn't giving him enough credit."

Her pity-me ploy worked like a charm. Jarvis looked sympathetic at the reminder of her return to singlehood, and he did not press further.

In fact, when Howard scoffed: "Ha! One act of kindness does not make a decent human being," Jarvis cut in with: "Just like one shiny bobble does not make up for your Wham-Bam-Don't-let-the-door-hit-you-in-the-arse-as-you-let-yourself-out-ma'am approach to dating?"

And just like that, they were off again.

As she listened to Howard vaunt the benefits of no-sentiment casual dating, she thought about all of her past relationships and wondered if she had been missing out.

There had been Fred, her high school sweetheart. He had popped the question after graduation and had planned out their future together. He had resented it when she had said that she wanted to go back to America for school. He hadn't wanted to wait for her. Good riddance.

She had sworn off men after that heartbreak, but then sweet earnest Steve Rogers had come along. He had been the shyest, most socially awkward American-football Quarterback there was, but so passionate in his defense of America's troops in their speech class together that she had decided then and there that he would be worth the risk if he ever asked her out. He had (eventually), and she had said yes.

Their time together had been short and terribly brief. In March, he had gotten word that his best friend Bucky who had joined the Army was missing in action somewhere in the Middle East. That spring break he joined up. That summer he went through boot camp. That fall he shipped out, and by New Year's the heroic idiot was throwing himself on a grenade to save his unit, or at least that's what his fellow commandos had been willing to tell her.

One would think she would have given up on happy endings by then. But no, there was Daniel and Jason after that.

No need to dwell on Wilkes. Daniel though...

Daniel had been one of the few welcoming classmates in her new department. Despite being roommates with Jack, he hadn't minded partnering up with her on projects and seemed even willing to jeopardize his standing in the fraternity to socialize with her persona-non-gratis self.

They had gone on a few dates, but except for a few hot and heavy make-out sessions, they had gone nowhere. They both had sensed (mostly Daniel) that she was trying to force the relationship to happen, mostly because he was the kind of guy she thought she 'ought' to go out with – sweet and smart and endearing.

As soon as Peggy had this thought, she wondered what in the hell she had been doing with Wilkes. If Daniel hadn't worked out because she was too fixated on a Mr. Right Checklist, then why in the world had she thought going out with Wilkes was a good idea?

She stared down again at the message.

Sweet and endearing, Jack was not.

Mr. Right material, he most definitely was not.

Screw it. Why not?

And with that she stealthily replied: _B ther n 1/2 hr._


	3. The Rules

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 3: The Rules

* * *

She came. They stripped. And then she came. And came. And came again.

He used that silver tongue of his to good and extremely effective use. She showed him what it was like to have a real woman ride on top.

Afterwards, she didn't have to scramble for her clothes quite so much before she attempted to make her exit out the window that connected to the fire escape.

"Where are you going?" he called confusedly after her.

"Back to my dorm," she answered, and then dubiously eyeing his sprawled and spent-looking form, she asked archly, "Unless you think you have another few rounds in you?"

He lazily waved his hand in the air, dismissing her question, and clarified, "No, I mean – why are you going out that way?"

Peggy tried not to smirk at him, but it was really hard not to be chuffed at how incredibly brain-dead she had made him. It had certainly been a more pleasurable way to do so than busting her hand on his jaw like she had imagined doing over a thousand times these past two years.

"It's not Christmas break anymore," she condescendingly explained. When that wasn't sufficient, she added slowly, "Your frat house is crawling with your frat brothers…? Frat brothers who like to gossip…? Like a bunch of pre-teen girls?"

At the insult to his brothers' masculinity, the light bulb finally came on with a burst of indignant outrage. He sat straight up, exclaiming, "Fuck no, Carter! Jesus, we have rules here."

"Let me guess. What happens in the frat house stays in the frat house?" she scoffed.

"Exactly."

She crossed her arms and settled back against the window ledge. In all honesty, enjoying this debate about as half as much as the sex. Now either that said their rounds of the mattress mambo hadn't been as good as she thought or something not so flattering about her character. She would overanalyze that later.

"Really, the only two people you have to worry about violating the Vegas rule are the gossipy bitches, Ramirez – who I will straighten out in the morning – and Daniel. But tonight's bowling night, so he won't even see you. Your dirty little secret is safe and locked-down."

Peggy relaxed a little at this. Ricky Ramirez would do whatever Jack told him. He was one of Jack's staunchest Yes-men. And Daniel was out bowling tonight. He and Rose Roberts, her R.A., were on the same team, and took the sport quite seriously. So seriously that she knew that Rose had gotten Daniel special shoes to help with his limp, 'so he wouldn't have to compensate quite so much'.

Making a mental note to ask Daniel later about the success of the shoes, she un-crossed her arms and strode for the door, saying ominously, "Okay. Fine. But if word gets out about this, I will let everyone know about your dirty little secret – emphasis on the _little_."

To her smug satisfaction, there was a high-pitched squawk of protest " _'Little'_?! Carter, there is nothing lit– !", which she cut off just as she shut the door behind her.

His outrage was such music to her ears that she didn't mind the pointed looks, arched eyebrows, and barely hushed wolf whistles by the few Sigma Sigma Rho brothers who did witness her dramatic exit.

~A~

No one did talk about it. There was not one peep or squeak from the rumor mill on Greek Row, not even any knowing winks.

Jack continued to be his snide, pompous, sarcastic jackass-self when they crossed paths publicly, but he never used his recently acquired intimate knowledge of her in their verbal sparring matches.

She would have just left it at that, but then…Howard happened.

"Hey, thanks for meeting me here," he greeted her as soon as she got to his table.

"Sure no problem," she reassured as she sat down across from him, and then she did a double take. Alarm bells were going off in her head. Howard Stark was exhibiting all the signs of being guilty of something – shifting in his seat, not meeting her eyes, nervously licking his lips.

"Unless there is a problem?"

"Problem? No, no problem. Why would there be a problem? Geez, Peg, you always jump to the worst conclusions."

"Okay, now I know there is a problem. You haven't babbled like this since you had to own up that you hit on my new roommate Angie." After she had clearly told him not to.

Freshmen year had been a social disaster in her hall due to the fact that her charming friend had serial dated through most of her neighbors. At one point, he had tricked Edwin into dropping off his favorite break-up gift to one girl, while he himself delivered roses to his next as she walked out of her women's studies class. The problem was that they were roommates.

Considering how she had reacted to his infraction with Angie, it was no wonder that he had asked her to meet him in the cafeteria, a highly public place, where she was less likely to hit him over whatever it was that he might potentially be about to confess.

"I didn't babble then," he protested, and then with boyish pout, he added, "I whined. Like a school girl. You were twisting my ear like Sister Nora did when I was a boy."

"Defensiveness. Repetition. Teasing tangents about naughty-boy Stark days. I rest my case." Fixing him with a cool stare, she ordered, "Spill."

"Alright, already. Well, you know I am starting my own R&D company, right?"

She did. Despite Howard Stark still being in undergrad, he was on his way to being a multi-millionaire. Mostly, it was due to his highly successful inventions – a few popular and useful software programs here, a few ingenious, energy saving hardware items there. There was also a keen business-acumen as well that contributed to his wealth. Many, even as far back as his senior year in high school, had predicted that he would be the next Steve Jobs.

One might ask why he was still in college if he was so successful. To be honest, many had. She herself had when she and Steve had first met him in Econ class. His reply had been a sly wink and 'Why, Peggy, for the hot co-ed babes, of course'. She suspected the real reason was that Lehigh University gave him the perfect place to poach the brightest and keenest minds for his research and development company.

As soon as she had this thought, she exclaimed, "Oh no, Howard! You didn't, did you?"

"If you mean, that I didn't ask a certain brilliant physicist to come onto my latest project that I came up with while I was in Peru, then…I plead the fifth – unless of course, you're okay with it? You will be okay with it, won't you, Peggy? I mean with his help we could make a real breakthrough…"

And just like that he was off, overwhelming her with his scientific jargon and guilt trips about hindering progress with her emotional hang-ups over a bad break-up.

By the end of his please-forgive-me-even-though-I-am-so-not-sorry-for-not-asking-for-permission-first spiel, she finally caved and said it was 'okay'.

She left the cafeteria feeling completely 'not okay'.

She thought about texting any one of her girlfriends – Angie, Rose, or Ana. But she really wasn't in the mood to be pitied.

 _'You know who wouldn't pity you?'_ a tiny niggling voice goaded her at the back of her mind.

No. Not him.

 _'But…'_

And just like that, with hardly any other prompting, she found herself messaging him back.

 **Peggy:** _Round 3? My place?_

 **Peggy:** _Angie's at her family's for the weekend._

He replied within minutes.

 **Jack:** _Keep your window open. U grls dfntly don't have the Vegas rule._

~A~

She made it back to her dorm in time to do a quick tidy-up, to raid Angie's condom stash, to save a reminder in her phone to buy and replace what she stole so her friend would be none the wiser, to re-apply her lip gloss, and to open up the window as requested.

Again within minutes of this signal, he was texting: _on my way up. Both literally and figuratively ; )_

She might have commented on his over-eagerness, but that would be like the pot calling the kettle black, so she refrained – but only barely, especially when he began stripping as soon as he was in her room.

While she may have been willing to hold her tongue in the spirit of not being overly critical, Jack as usual was not.

When he noticed that she was not disrobing at the speed that had been par for the course so far, he snarked even as had his shirt half-pulled over his head, "Well, Marge, if you want foreplay, you got to speak up. As brilliant and observant as I am, mind reader I am not."

When his shirt was completely off and he saw her staring at his well-muscled and beautifully lean torso, he leered, "Like what you see, sweetheart?"

Oh bloody hells, yes she did. The problem was that unlike last time, she was not in the mood to verbally spar with him.

She wanted… she wanted…

Forcing herself to look him in the eye, she bluntly asked, "You don't mind that I am using you for hot rebound hate sex, do you?"

He smirked, "Just as long as you don't mind that I am using you for simple good ol' sex."

She doesn't.

"Good, then no talking," and then with that last demand, she fused her mouth to his to seal the deal.

The kiss was hot, harsh, and biting.

His hands were rough as they dug into her skin and practically ripped her skirt and shirt from her. She was equally fierce, grinding up against him, shoving him towards the bed, clawing at his pants.

It was a brutal battle of wills. There were bruises and scratches and fervent breathy pants.

And when she finally got him naked and he got her down to her underwear, he lunged for one of her stolen condoms, rolled it on, shoved aside that last scrap of lacy fabric, and then he thrust up and into her.

One hand grasped her hip tightly, the other gripped her hair at the back of her neck to pull her moaning mouth to his, as he steadily pushed into her.

Both sets of her lips grasped at him greedily. She wriggled and rocked and arched her hips, meeting him thrust for thrust. She clawed at his back with one hand and holding his upper arm with the other, using it as leverage, doing whatever she could for that coveted feeling of friction.

And he is giving it to her in spades.

It's rough and hard, and by the end of it, she is biting into his shoulder to keep from screaming and he is letting out low needy moans in her ear. The feel of his warm breath ghosting across her neck – just _right Oh God!_ there – has her shuddering around him just as much as his lancing thrusts that were hitting all the right buttons were.

He came within moments of her, but instead of him collapsing next to her as he was wont to do with their previous …grappling sessions (for a lack of a better term), he immediately headed to her bathroom to clean up.

She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew he was dressed and tossing her phone at her.

She was torn between protesting his leaving (she had clearly indicated that Angie would be gone for the whole weekend) and checking to see whose call she missed. She gave into curiosity, especially when Thompson grunted at her when she almost set her phone aside.

She let out a low laugh when she read the message _he_ sent _her_.

 **Jack:** _Sry. I got 2 go. Plans with Li & Ricky_

Playing along with his desire to continue to obey her no talking rule, she texted back:

 **Peggy:** _No prob. Don't wanna know what kind of trble Larry & Curly are getting up 2 without their Moe_

He scowled and both texted her and flashed her a rude hand gesture, before ducking out the way he came in.

That was fine by her though. She was sweaty and achy in all the right places.

She was quite in a magnanimous mood – at least towards him. Who woulda thunk?


	4. Daniel

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 4: Daniel

* * *

Jack never let a dame get to him.

The Old Jack, the starry-eyed romantic Jack might have, but the New Jack, the older, wiser, realistic and jaded Jack, did not.

This Jack got under _their_ skins. He flirted. He taunted. He riled. He seduced. And then he moved on.

 _They_ pined for him. _They_ chased after him. If he did go back for seconds (or thirds or fourths, whatever they were on now), it was post 2300 hours and for booty call purposes only.

He did _not_ get a boner over cheesy text messages exchanged in the middle of class while his peers were presenting their projects. That is what his teenage punk-self did.

It was his own fault that he had regressed so far. He had started it with his message: _You free tonight? You can charge me in the morning for Assault with a Friendly Weapon_ – when Wallace had been listing out the various types of criminal charges common in law enforcement.

He only made it worse for himself during Fisher's overview on search and seizure procedures when he sent: _I promise to do a **thorough**_ _cavity search ;-)_ , for she upped the ante with messages about her own personal _vibrating_ baton and its various uses for cavity searches.

So yeah, was it any wonder when Carter went to the front of the class and announced that her topic was "Restraints" that he let out such a loud groan?

Her faint flush yet knowing smirk did not help his own fevered skin any, so when Professor Dooley offered to excuse him from class, he took it.

He took it and ran with it to the nearest empty bathroom, where he and his right hand dealt with business – just like he had in middle school.

And this is why he hated Margaret "Peggy" Carter so.

~A~

Later that afternoon, he was given the perfect example of why he hated his roommate – he was an observant nosy son of a bitch.

This was a trait that would make him an excellent investigative agent of some sort, if whatever potential agency could overlook his bum leg.

But it was not a trait he appreciated at the moment, for as soon as he walked into their common area of their suite he was faced with a glowering Daniel, arms-crossed, and belligerent stance as he growled:

"How long have you and Peggy been together, Thompson?"

Without sparing the man another glance, he headed straight for their mini-fridge and flat out denied: "We aren't."

"Bullshit!"

Jack grabbed a beer, popped the top off, and took a swig of it, all the while looking at the man questioningly with one arched eyebrow. And predictably, Danny-boy caved, spewing out all his evidence for what led him to make such wild accusations without a word of prompting.

"The two of you were both texting in class – "

"Ever heard of the word 'coinci– '?"

" – and were both fidgeting and blushing like preteens in sex ed, especially when Dooley called you out on it!"

Oh screw it. She was as much to blame as him.

"Alright. Alright. You caught us. But we're not 'together'." He used air quotes for the full condescending effect, and then shrugged dismissively. "We have been _at times_ for like half hour, forty-five minutes, five minutes. It really depends on how much foreplay we are interested in."

One of the things he had come to love about Sousa was that dumb, slack-jawed look of incredulous horror of his. Jack was less than secretly proud that he managed to still do that to the man even after three years of rooming with him. (No, really, Ramirez now owed him $20. This was the third time this semester).

When Daniel finally was able to find his voice, he asked, "So it's just sex between the two of you?"

Jack intended to say 'No shit, Sherlock. Can you imagine it being anything else between me and Carter?', but he couldn't quite get the words out.

That moment of hesitancy, that glimmer of doubt, cost him. Daniel was all over it, shrewdly asking: "Do you care for her?"

He could have told Susan to mind his own business at this point, but that seemed too much like deflection. So instead, he gave him the truth as he knew it:

"I respect the shit out of her, which is why I have scared the bejesus out of Ramirez so his big mouth does not blab this all over Greek Row."

Sousa ignored his _hint, hint_ glare and pressed, "And by 'this' you mean you two are secretly dating?"

After taking another fortifying sip of his beer, he shrugged and replied honestly, "I dunno know what we are. We haven't really talked out about it."

Upon his roommate shooting him another one of his Looks of Horror, Jack made a mental note to collect from Ramirez $50 for two such looks in one conversation.

"You haven't talked?"

"That's what I said, isn't it? Oh don't look so shocked. Mar- Peggy didn't really want to the last time. In fact, she rather _insisted_ that I exercise my Miranda Right to not to."

(Make that $100).

"Oh god, forget I asked. I don't want to know."

Jack reveled for a moment in the man's positively green around the gills expression and overall discomfort, before pushing off the wall to stalk towards him. When he stood across their coffee table from him, he leaned down and warned darkly, "That's right you don't want to. In fact you don't know. This is _exactly_ like Krzminski's girlfriend."

Danny-boy gulped nervously, and for good reason too.

Ray Krzminski actually had two girlfriends, but everyone in the frat only referred to them as that – "Ray's girlfriend". If anyone asked them who Ray's girlfriend was, they all played dumb. Now he himself didn't particularly agree with the man's dating lifestyle. As a personal rule, if he was to label a dame as 'his girlfriend' then in his mind they were exclusive. But he hoped for all parties involved that his brother would pick a girl soon.

It dawned on Jack in that moment that the reason the frat had Ray's big secret locked-down so tightly under the Vegas rule was not because they all didn't want to cock-block the man (or at least for him it wasn't _just_ that), but it was to give the man time to figure out which girl was the love of his life.

But in the case of him and Carter? No… it wasn't _that_ serious. It was just that he knew if word got out before she was ready, she would never jump him again. And that would be criminal, for the sex was the best he had ever had, which was saying something.

Not to mention that Carter would never forgive him. He would be re-categorized from 'bitter rival' to 'Enemy #1' – much like the U.S. had done Russia after World War 2. But unlike the Cold War, there would be no hope of détente. She would ice him out.

And that he would not, could not have.

At Sousa's nod, he clapped him on the shoulder and said, "Good. Now are you willing to be my sniper for the Annual Charity Games?"

~A~

When Peggy opened her dorm room door and was greeted by Daniel with: "So you and Jack, huh?", she was prepared somewhat with an answer, as Jack had kindly sent her a warning text that her friend had caught them out.

"Yeah, me and Jack. He's something new."

Daniel pushed past her and then spun on his heel to face her, looking as if he was ready to defend her honor – even from herself.

As soon as she shut her door, he questioned her as if he was questioning her sanity, "Something new? You wanted variety so you chose Jack of all guys?"

"Yes."

As with all hysterical people, the best approach was the calm one.

"But why? He's such a… such a…"

"Bastard? Jackass? Tosser? Wanker? Etc.?" she supplied, truly struggling to hide her amusement at his floundering.

"Yeah, pick one or all of the above!"

Peggy pursed her lips and tried not snap back in irritation. This is why she did not want people to know about her and Jack. All the explaining and defending and the enduring of the 'I care for you but WTF?!' speeches was going to be exhausting.

But this was Daniel. He did care. It wasn't coming from jealousy (or at least, it mostly wasn't). And he could be reasoned with.

So instead of snarling at him like she would most other ex-boyfriends or brotherly figures, she went over to her couch, sat down, and padded the seat next to her. When he got settled and appeared ready to listen, she said thoughtfully, "Tell me something, Daniel. If he's so horrible, why do you voluntarily choose to be his suite-mate? He can't be easy to live with."

Jack wasn't. Peggy had heard enough complaints from Daniel over the years to know that.

Daniel sighed and rubbed his face, while he graciously gave her question the consideration it was due. Eventually, he stated, "I am a legacy. My father was a Sigma Sigma Rho, and his father was too. So it's expected of me to be one too… And I _do_ want to go into some kind of law enforcement. With my leg, I am going to need some kind of networking juice to do that... So, I guess, if I have to live with one of these animals, it might as well be the Tasmanian devil I know."

Peggy smiled, partly in amusement at his description of Jack, but mostly in satisfaction at being right and for him giving her the perfect window.

"Exactly. I know all of Jack's bad qualities already. Right now, I am learning all the good. And boyo, between you and me, they are _damn_ fine." Her smile widened into a roguish grin that included exaggerated waggling of her eyebrows.

"Ugh!" Daniel shuddered. "Between the two of you I am going to need to petition Stark to invent top-notch brain bleach."

Taking pity on him, she finally poured the bourbon into the glasses she had set out in preparation of this conversation, and when she handed it to him, she said sympathetically, "Well until then, here is some alcohol, my friend."

Daniel downed it in one shot, and then held his glass out for another.

It was at this point that Angie bounced into their dorm, and upon seeing the bourbon, she asked cheerfully, "Ooh! What are we celebrating so early in the day?"

"Not celebrating. Mourning. Or more accurately, cleaning," Daniel corrected glumly.

At Angie's questioning and concerned look, Peggy shook her head in "don't ask" kind of way.

And Angie, being the dear sweet friend that she was, did not. Instead, she grabbed a glass of her own and poured herself a double-shot, as she declared, "Oh good, then I have come to the right place! Because I swear that so-called director is a diva and is going to be the death of my career before it gets even started."

She then proceeded to prattle on about her tale of woes, punctuating it with "can-you-believes" and "it's-outrageous-English-es", and because she was such a good storyteller that she even got Daniel to crack a smile.

As soon as she saw that, she must have felt her work was done, because she then turned to Peggy and said, "Oh, Rose wanted me to remind you to sign up for the Annual Charity Games and to let her know who else you recruited to be on yours and her team."

Peggy opened her mouth to ask Daniel, but at his guilty look, she scowled, " _He_ got to you first, didn't he?"

Her so-called friend downed the last of his bourbon and began beating a hasty retreat, muttering some such non-sense about "Sigma Sigma Rho brotherhood".

And to think she wasted a good bottle of bourbon on that traitor.


	5. Game

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

 **A/N:** Warning - there will be excessive name-dropping, canon-allusions, and text messaging. Easter eggs ahoy!

* * *

Chapter 5: Game

* * *

 _Friday Night_

"So what's this Paintball Extravaganza all about again?" Angie asked curiously as she painted her toe nails.

Her eyes had grown wide with her curiosity as soon as Peggy warned her that her teammates would be invading their dorm to discuss their overall strategy for the upcoming week's event.

"It's a charity event that the student council sets up – a week long paintball tournament that's a mishmash of Assassination, Capture the Flag, and VIP. The winning team gets a hundred dollars-worth gift card to Amazon to be split as they choose and the rest of the money from the entrance fees is being donated to charity of their choice," she explained. "If we win, it is going to the local shelter that supports homeless veterans."

"And you chose to team up with Howard, Eddie, Rose, and _Aloysius_ for this?" Angie asked in disbelief, her eyebrows arching but her gaze never lifting from their intense focus on her toes.

Peggy shrugged, "Rose and Jarvis have a surprising knack for this kind of thing, and Howard and Samberly have their uses. I would have liked to have had Daniel, but he like most frat boys is playing for a house team."

Rose had recrited her, and Howard had invited himself and Jarvis along. The real problem had been their fifth memer. Howard had wanted Jason, "a fellow brain not some jock", but Rose had saved the day by inviting Samberly, whom was deemed as an "acceptable" alternative due to his being some kind of engineering major.

"So Daniel's on Jackie-boy's team, isn't he?" Angie inquired, recalling Peggy's outraged reaction to Daniel's unavailability. This time, her gaze did lift as she asked with a knowing smirk, "And what will it take for you to defeat his Most-Smugness?"

"The team with the most points wins, which I think we can do by getting the most 'flags'."

Before she could bore her poor roommate with the details, there was a knock at the door.

As soon as she opened her door, Jarvis and Rose were shoving equipment and packets at her saying, "Here's your gun and ammo. We're white paint…And here's your packet with all the info for the app that the council will use to keep track and provide updates."

She set the gun and the ammo on her desk and opened up the packet while they made themselves at home. The packet contained the rules that they had signed to abide by (practically in blood) – only play during the hours of 8am and 8pm, only on campus and never indoors, only shoot at players (if non-players are hit you and your team will lose points), and so on and so-forth.

She downloaded her app and created her account. As soon as she did so, she was notified of her first target.

 **Spider Raymond**

 **Team: Mafia**

 **Major: Business**

 **Identified Skills: Strategy, Networking, and Swing dancing**

 **Flag Keeper?: Yes**

Score! For her first target, not only was she going to be able to get ten points an assassination kill was worth, but also the twenty-five that capturing the Mafia team's flag was worth. It was going to be a productive first day.

~A~

 _Day 1…_

 ** _9:06pm_**

Peggy was almost grateful that her phone started ringing. It gave her a reasonable excuse to make her final apologies to Colleen (who had unfortunately gotten covered in green paint when some tosser from the Leviathan team tried to take out Peggy just as the clock struck eight).

"Hello?"

"I just thought I ought to tell you in case you didn't see the leader boards, but I am an Ace. Five kills in one day, including an Assassination target," Jack crowed in her ear.

"That's impressive, Jack," she said honestly, and then with some smug amusement of her own, she added, "No, I haven't checked the boards yet. But have you?"

There was a static-filled hiss as Jack let out an exasperated sigh, "Yeah, Carter, I did. Two Assassinations, a Captured Flag, a Stolen Flag, and a whole team annihilated. Good job."

Peggy snorted. Good? That was damn-effing awesome. And he knew it. He had after all let out a low impressed whistle at the sight of the two white paint splatters on the man's forehead. She had heard him as she had passed him outside of the Business College lounge.

She had no idea why he had been there, but she had been leaving Raymond's assassinated self to move onto her next target on the 'Warehouse Boyz' team. Fortuitously for her, all five of them had been taking a smoke break behind the gym. So in one fell-swoop, she had gotten her ten target points, her twenty-five flag points, and twenty points for her four additional kills (five points for each non-target kill).

This second team's flag 'keeper' had not been her assigned target, so unlike Spider Raymond's glow-in-the-dark Pac-man night-light, the Warehouse Boyz' zodiac calendar could be stolen from her if she was killed as she had acquired it by making a non-target kill. Thus, the distinction that she had 'stolen the flag', rather than 'captured the flag'. It was the most complicated paint-ball game she had ever heard of, much less been in, but she was going to own it.

"So the purpose of this call was to what?" she challenged.

"To let you know that I am just as skilled as you, if not as lucky as you were today. So don't get comfortable."

"Hmm… I am sensing a bet coming on."

"Well, that's mighty perceptive of you, _sweetheart_ ," he crooned in her ear.

She took advantage of his dramatic pause to make sure that the coast was clear in her dorm for what had become hers and Jack's bizarre version of flirty banter.

When she saw that it was clear and that their calendar showed that Angie had yet another late night rehearsal, she taunted, "So what is supposed to happen when the poor delusional wannabe-cop girl finally discovers that she's not able to keep up with the big boys?"

"Awe, come on, Carter. Don't be like that!"

Since he sounded genuinely offended, she didn't press him further on that front and amended, "Okay, what is it that you're fantasizing about as the forfeit for this bet?"

"Oh, Marge, let me count the ways that I could make your toes curl and your – "

"Yeah, yeah, and my hair stand on end and my body writhe and so on and so on," she interjected. "You only get one, that is, _if_ you win."

There was an amused huff of laughter, and then he launched into a _very_ detailed description of one of his toe-curling fantasies that by the end of it, she almost wished that she would lose.

Almost.

"And how about you, Marge? What would you want to be my forfeit _if_ I were to lose to you?"

Jack wasn't the only one that had more than one deep dark wish about the other. But she knew of at least one that would really get under his skin like he had hers.

So in her huskiest of whispers, she mused, "You missed out on my demonstration for our presentation in Dooley's class…but I could give you private one with a few of the more – _sensual_ – restraints that I learned in my research."

So it wasn't the sexiest thing ever uttered, but it was certainly good enough to get a reaction out of Jack.

There was a groan at the other end of the phone and then: "You may not do the best dirty talk, but you certainly fight dirty, Carter."

"Count on it."

~A~

 _Day 2…_

 ** _10:18pm_**

 **Peggy:** _Sorry about Krzminski_

 **Jack:** _No u r not_

She could just picture his petulant scowl as he rapidly fired back his accusation. She was tempted to reply _'ha ha, you're right'_ or _'sucker : P'_ , but she refrained and went for the mature response.

 **Peggy:** _Sorry that the big guy is permanently out of the game and your team is a man down? No_

 **Peggy:** _But sorry that Dottie was the one to get him? Yes._

She went about her nightly routine of washing her face and brushing her teeth, but when she next checked her phone, there was yet another message.

 **Jack:** _U should be._

Now that was daunting. Almost out of morbid curiosity, she sent: _How so?_

 **Jack:** _Ray told me that he had your target file_

 _'Shit.'_ She did not text that to him. But she certainly was thinking it.

If Ray had her target file and Dottie Underwood had assassinated him, then that meant that Dottie would now be gunning for her. Shitty shit. Sure-shit. Tits.

Instead of giving his gloating whatever response he was itching for, she decided to deflect and do her own bit of goading.

 **Peggy:** _taking out the Arena Club? That took some balls, which I didn't think you had_

She had meant to taunt him about his tendency to brown-nose and kiss-ass for anyone with a modicum of influence (and those in the not-so secret misogynistic society known as the Arena Club were highly connected in federal law enforcement). But too late, she realized what she had opened the door for, and sure enough he walked right through it like the cock-sure son of a bitch he was.

 **Jack:** _really? Cuz I seem to recall some hands-on verification tests_

To punish him for his crassness, she went silent and began scanning her newsfeeds instead. She was in the middle of some article about alleged election tampering, when Jack sent: _'okay. Ok. I will take the compliment'_ and then while she was perusing her Manchester United team's stats, he added: _'it did cost me some political capital with the campus elite, but it was so worth it'._

That she could not ignore.

 **Peggy:** _is that how you got the tip-off that I was after Mcfee?_

 **Jack:** _maybe_

Which really meant yes. And that pissed her off.

She had started off her day trying to track down the tosser who had plastered Colleen the night before, so that he could pay for the poor woman's dry cleaning.

She had tracked down the student council member who had the team rosters and had managed to convince them to give her at least one name and background info. They had probably given her Mcfee's name because he was the worst shot on the team, but when the council member realized that Mcfee was the team's flag keeper, they tipped him off that she was tracking him down and he went into hiding. So she had spent all Sunday morning and part of the afternoon searching for the sweaty little man instead of chasing her own target.

Not that anybody else seemed to know that.

When she and Jarvis had finally found the man, two of Mcfee's team members had been there and so had Jack, Daniel, and possibly Li and Ramirez too.

Leet Brannis had been there to do a Keeper transfer. (A Keeper who believed he was doomed to be assassinated could hand off the team's flag to another team-member in order to avoid a flag being captured or stolen, but only one such transfer could occur per team).

Sasha Demidov had been there to kill her as she was later to discover. (This was apparently before Dottie had gotten her as a target).

But Jack and his frat buddies had just been there to keep her from collecting another flag.

 **Peggy:** _you were totally trying to run interference on me!_

 **Jack:** _hey, you were the one that promised to fight dirty_

 **Jack:** _besides all's fair in love and war, sweetheart_

 **Peggy:** _oh yeah? Well lucky for me you're good at one and shit at the other_

When he didn't reply, she just knew that he wasn't sure how to take it. Ha!

She of course meant that he was crap at 'war'. He had only grazed Mcfee and had missed her when he had ambushed the man at his white truck. She and Jarvis had already been chasing after Brannis by that point.

She hadn't managed to kill Brannis and steal his flag because in order to prevent her from doing so, Demidov had popped five green rounds into his own teammate's chest so that by default he would become the team's flag keeper. (It was a futile attempt because Jarvis got the drop on the man himself, and so they still got Leviathan's 'flag', a tugboat charm). In retaliation of being offed by his own team member, Brannis had let her know that she could send the dry cleaning bill to Demidov.

Her point being – look at all that she had accomplished even with his poor attempts at interference.

 **Jack:** _not cool, Marge. Not cool_

Peggy did not know if Jack was good at love, but she did know that he was great at the sex. It was a distinction that she was not going to let him in on though. She would much rather keep him on his toes and questioning his prowess. He was conceited enough as it was.

She thought that might be the end of their evening's bantering exchange, but then about twenty minutes later, just as she was dropping off to sleep…

 **Jack:** _Daniel thinks that we should target you to steal all those flags you've been acquiring_

That woke her right up. Daniel was an excellent sniper. She did _not_ need him gunning for her on top of being Dottie's target too.

 **Jack:** _but I told them you are MINE._

As Peggy stared at her glowing screen and those four big, bold letters, she knew that he didn't just mean to target with his blue paint. She knew that it was a deeper, darker, more possessive claim.

It sent shivers down her back. And the primal part of her enjoyed it so much, that she let him have that last word: _MINE_.


	6. Set

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 6: Set

* * *

 _Day 3…_

 ** _9:27pm_**

 **Jack:** _Checked the boards. Not seeing a whole lot of Carter action_

She had been waiting for his commentary on the day. Not quite checking it like an anxious school-girl, but she had been purposefully keeping her phone on hand, just for him. It was pathetic really. But she couldn't quite help herself.

 **Peggy:** _You're right. No, Carter action for you. You haven't won that bet._

 **Jack:** _Yet._

 **Jack:** _But you know what I mean_

She did know, but her mind it seemed was perpetually in Smut Mode when it came to these exchanges with Jack. And she wasn't sure yet if she regretted that fact.

 **Peggy:** _I had classes today_

 **Peggy:** _and in between I was dodging that psycho Otto_

She half-expected for Jack to take the opportunity to needle her with some jab about not being able to handle both schoolwork and 'undercover' work.

Instead she got Territorial Jack.

 **Jack:** _WTF?_

 **Jack:** _What's he doing going after you?_

She thought about making some snarky comment like _'what? He didn't get the I-am-yours memo?'_ But she was afraid of giving him any ideas. She was not some tree to be pissed all over. It was bad enough that Underwood did it.

So instead, she merely replied: _Well, he's not anymore. After Dottie offed him for the day, she made it pretty clear that he should stay gone._

 **Jack:** _I would send her thank you flowers, but I worry how much she has it out for you_

Not knowing how to take his concern, she tapped out: _like you?_

 **Jack:** _now there is a hot image. Underwood and Carter lip action_

Yeah, no. She was not going to entertain that fantasy of his tonight. But it did have possibilities…

 **Peggy:** _on that note, G'nite, perv_

~A~

 _Day 4…_

 ** _8:04pm_**

 **Peggy:** _tell me some good news_

Jack had been a bit disturbed to see that he had a message from Carter so quickly after the game curfew started. He had thought that she was chomping at the bit to let him know that she had acquired his target info before he had hers. But with a message like that…?

 **Jack:** _why?_

 **Peggy:** _it's been a shitty day_

Before he could resolve his internal war of mounting concern and panic over the fact that he was _genuinely_ concerned and not just wondering what he could get out of _acting_ concerned, she appealed to the latter half.

 **Peggy:** _and the better the news is, the better the reward ;-)_

Although his genuinely-concerned self was a bit disappointed that she was appealing more to his baser half, overall he was content that by giving her what she wanted both halves would be happy.

 **Jack:** _We cleaned out the Jr. Varsity SSR team_

 **Peggy:** _you turned on your frat brothers. Um…Yay?_

 **Jack:** _hey that's sweet-ass news for you, darlin'_

 **Peggy:** _how so?_

He could hear the skepticism as loudly as if she had spoken the words. And he could not smother the growing smirk on his face, even if it did creep out the girl on the elevator next to him.

 **Jack:** _Blackwell was Dottie's Assassin_

Yeah, that's right, Marge. I am going to get Underwood, and then I am coming for you. Tremble in your sassy high-heeled boots.

She didn't, of course.

 **Peggy:** _So will it be you, Daniel, or Ramirez that goes after her?_

 **Peggy:** _I know it won't be Li. Assassinated by a Freshman girl, was it?_

 **Jack:** _pig-tail wearing 17 y.o. We're never going to let him live it down_

Thank God, there was nowhere written in the bro-code that he had to defend Li under such circumstances. But he wasn't going to let her distract him that easily.

 **Jack:** _It will be me._

 **Jack:** _which means A) I get to be your knight in shining armor_

 **Jack:** _and B) best of all, you will be MINE next_

If he had a .gif of someone dropping the mike on his phone, he would have sent it then. It would have been perfect, as that staking of his claim had gotten him the last word earlier this week.

As soon as he heard his message alert _ding!_ and opened it up, he knew it was not to be.

 **Peggy:** _for reason A…_

And then there was a pic. And not just any pic.

It was an over the shoulder pic, that displayed the slope of her bare back. No top, no bra-straps, there was just beautiful creamy skin that ended at her enticing well-rounded ass, which clad in navy blue lace, teasingly blocked the view of what had to be garters (' _Garters! Oh, please, dear God, let there be garters'_ ) that went with the dark blue lace-knit tights that adorned her saucily crisscrossed legs.

And the pièce de résistance to this tableau were the sexiest red high-heeled pumps he had ever seen – mostly because a pair of silver cuffs dangled from their stilettos.

 **Peggy:** _For reason B…_

He waited expectantly for another tantalizing and salacious pic, but was sadly disappointed.

 **Peggy:** Sweet _dreams_

Yeah, if he hadn't been creeping out the girl next to him before, his outraged snort, nervous shifting, and tented pants certainly were by now.

~A~

 _Day 5…_

 ** _10:32pm_**

 **Peggy:** _rough day at the office, honey?_

 **Jack:** _terrible. Don't gloat_

He was not in the mood for yet another one of her victory dances – especially if there was no stripper pole involved.

All day today, he, Ramirez, and Daniel had been fending off attacks to steal their flags. They had needed to resort to transferring Keepers, and were in the middle of doing so, when they had been ambushed and Ramirez was killed for the day. By Dottie.

Dottie Underwood who was supposed to have been going after Carter had ambushed them.

Dottie Underwood, whom he was supposed to have been Assassinating so that he could get to Carter and all her booty (stolen-flag-wise and lace-clad-wise), had re-stolen the Arena Club pin.

And then to top it all off, he got to hear from Stark about he had struck a deal with his good friend Manfredi to turn on Frost so that Carter could Assassinate her and Capture their flag of black silly string.

Personally, he didn't think it was that big of a feat. The woman was constantly turning on her teammates, costing them points, just so she could keep Carter from winning. Really, what kind of strategy was that?

 **Peggy:** _Not gloating. I left you a pick-me-up present_

Jack entered his room and saw that his window to the fire-escape was not quite shut. So yes, she had been here. But he did not see any bags with bows or boxes with ribbon. There wasn't even an insulting bottle of little blue pills.

He was about to text her _'where?'_ , when he spotted Them.

Red lacy things. A lot like the ones that had been in The Pic. Lying on his bed.

He went over to them and picked them up, and he immediately noticed two things – they were _musky and damp._

Fuck. She had sat here and… and…

He glanced down and saw that Junior was on the rise. Pick-me-up present indeed.

 **Jack:** _tease_

 **Peggy:** _not today. Consider them a calling card_

 **Peggy:** _I have my roommate's key to the music dept's sound-proof practice booths…?_

Jack racked his brain for a music major frat brother and then sent: _be there in 20._

~.~

He got there in 18.

She was waiting for him in the piano practice booth.

He hadn't really known what to expect when he got there. Perhaps, there had been a vague notion of her dressed in the clichéd trench coat and nothing but.

But she wasn't. No, she stood there in the dim lighting, leaning casually against the grand piano, dressed in loose dark pants, a zipped up bomber jacket, and those sinful red heels.

In the dim lighting, he could also see that there were two glasses of whiskey on the rocks just at her shoulders on the grand piano, and as soon as he shut the door, she slid one down towards the keys and instructed, "Play me something."

He was about to ask how she knew that he played, when he remembered that sometime during the night of the frat party, he had bragged about how clever his fingers were – in more ways than one.

So instead of challenging her, he took a swig of the offered whiskey and began to demonstrate his skill, never taking his eyes off of her.

The jazzy tune with its sensual bass must have done something for her, because her dark brown eyes became black and hooded as she stared back at him. And to the rhythm of that bass she began to slink along the piano towards him, unzipping her jacket, shrugging out of her jacket, and revealing…

A creamy see-through top that did nothing to conceal the lacy blue bra underneath…

And red suspenders that held up those loose pants like some retro throwback to the 1940's.

He didn't know which was sexier – the lacy blue bra that _had_ to match the briefs in The Pic or the suspenders that made him think of garters.

He did know that she was the sexiest view now and ever though.

When he faltered in his playing at the sight of her, she leaned back and coolly began sipping at her whiskey, as if she had all the time and care in the world. So he did what any sane man (or at least a well-trained man) would do – he resumed playing.

The whiskey glass was set aside, and as she rounded the piano to join him at the keyboard, the suspenders came off – _pop! pop! –_ and the pants slid down her legs with each step. Then she was stepping out of them, and then she was sliding between his hands and standing before him in all her navy-lace clad glory.

He had been right. There were garters to go with those stockings. And gods, he had never wanted a woman more.

She had no objections when he stopped playing this time. In fact, after he had lifted her up to sit her on top of the piano, she had wrapped those legs of hers around him, pressing her red spiky heels into the small of his back, so that she could draw him in closer, and then she leaned back willingly as he slid her silky top up her body, allowing him full access to trail kisses over each inch of skin that was revealed.

Once the top was off, she was sprawled across the top of the piano, a feast waiting to be devoured.

His lips trailed down her body again, ghosting over her neck, across her collar bone, down the valley of her breasts. His hands caressed up and down her sides. His thumbs grazed across her nipples, circling them once, twice, and then he flicked them as he went ever lower.

His rough calloused hands ran up and down her stocking covered legs, stopping to tease the patches of skin that peeked through the lacy holes with feather-light touches, while his lips grazed along the tops of them, up along the thin ribbon slings, and ever closer to her lush ripe center.

During all of this, her silence had been broken by occasional hums of pleasure and breathy gasps and moans, but when his tongue proved to be just as quite as clever as his fingers had been over the black-and-white keys…

She sang.

It was a beautiful litany of curses, that rose and fell with her bucks and arches, that he did little to stop – mostly because one of his hands was busy stroking himself in time to her body's siren song.

And when her aria crescendoed with her climax, he found his own ending groan to be in harmony with hers.

They must have painted quite the debauched tableau with her sprawled across the piano, her perspiration dripping onto its glossy walnut surface, with his face buried in her stomach, his spunk dripping onto the floor, and with both of them panting raggedly and chuckling breathlessly as they tried to recover.

Eventually, Peggy sat up just enough to disentangle herself from him and slide off the instrument. While she slithered back into her clothes, he tucked himself back up, wiped up their mess, and finished off his whiskey.

When he lowered the glass, he saw Peggy eyeing him hungrily once again. Before he could tease her about not getting enough, she was on him, pulling the glass away from his mouth so that she could fuse hers to his.

She licked and she sucked and her tongue plunged and tasted, and he knew that she was doing so just because she wanted to taste herself on him.

At that thought he found himself becoming aroused once again.

But she pulled away, collected her glass along with his, and whispered huskily, "How's your day now?"

"Shit, Carter," he gasped. "That gives a whole new meaning to 'a kiss to make it better'."

"I'll say," she smirked, as she sensuously stretched and groaned in satisfaction, and then she was gone.


	7. Match

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 7: Match

* * *

 _Day 6…_

 ** _5:15pm_**

Thursday had turned out to be a lot like Monday and Tuesday. She spent the majority of her day going to classes, working on homework, and meeting classmates for projects, all the while dodging whoever was trying to Assassinate her. Monday, it had been Otto. Tuesday, it had been Rufus, and today, it had been Dottie.

After the third or fourth time being nearly splattered with green paint by the woman, she texted Jack: _where the hell are you?_

She only had to wait a few minutes in her huddled position behind the garbage and recycling bins before he replied.

 **Jack:** _I am at the store getting snacks. There is a game on tonight._

She didn't know how she could reply without sounding desperate so she sent exactly what she felt, minus any four letter words.

 **Peggy:** _Really?!_

 **Jack:** _No._

 **Peggy:** _So basically instead of coordinating an ambush for her, you want to not give away your position so you can get a 2-for-1_

 **Jack:** _if you really need your white knight, you could let me know where you are_

 **Peggy:** _Ha! Nice try_

 **Peggy:** _I don't need to be rescued. I can handle her. I just would rather it be sooner than later_

 **Peggy:** _you're a lot easier to deal with_

And because she just couldn't resist: _I mean, you're just easy_

She didn't wait for his reply, because now was her chance. A gaggle of foreign exchange students were heading out to the parking lot for an event trip. Much to their confusion, she slipped in among them using them as cover.

She had to part ways eventually though when she reached the section of the lot that Howard had said he parked the car that he was loaning her. Her phone _dinged!_ with a message alert, but she ignored it as she tried to make sure the coast was clear.

She must not have done a very good job, because just as she reached the car, there was a sharp sting to her shoulder and then her ears heard the corresponding _Splat!_ of paint striking and soiling her jacket.

She hastily unlocked Howard's car (a convertible, thank God the top was up) and scrambled in. She twisted her jacket around, careful to make sure that it did not stain the seat, and afraid that it was the fifth green stain from Dottie, as 5 wing shots equaled a kill.

It was blue though.

 _'Blue! That bloody bastard.'_

She whipped out her phone to give him what for, only to see his previously unread message.

 **Jack:** _just for that…_

Peggy thought about sending a rather nasty and rude retort, but one thing she had learned from her mother was that a lady caught more flies with honey than vinegar. She really did not want to keep dodging Dottie, especially tomorrow. She had plans for Jack tomorrow. And he was a lot more fun – not that she was going to tell him any of that.

So instead she sent: _Did you at least get her too?_

 **Jack:** _No, she's too well covered. But the night is still young._

Peggy thought about it. She could make sure to get her errands done before 8 o'clock and tell him when and where to expect her so that Dottie was ambushed. But too much forewarning and he might be able to plan ahead and ambush her too.

So instead, she decided to leak her plans just before she returned so both Dottie and he would have to scramble.

Now who could she have be her little bird?

~.~

 ** _8:02pm_**

For the first time that week, Peggy was at the Student Activity Center where the Council posted the day's results for each team and member.

She was not really interested. Rose and Jarvis had been keeping her apprised of their standing, but she was pleased to see that they were the only team with all five members not yet permanently eliminated and were neck and neck with a few others for the most acquired flags. She was almost just as pleased to see that Team Leviathan had been completely eliminated.

 _'Speaking of…'_ She glanced around the room and saw for herself that this was the first time Underwood was _not_ there. Peggy didn't know whether to be relieved that the woman was not there to glare daggers at her or disappointed that she was denied the opportunity to gloat a little.

"Looking for me?"

"No," she replied coolly in response to the low male voice that practically purred in her ear. She didn't jump at his words, as she had known that Jack was making his way through the crowded room towards her. His swaggering strut was not at all that subtle. But she had not been expecting that warm gust of his breath that ghosted across her skin, nor her body's instant arousal response – the tingles, shivers, and hardening of her nipples. Oh yeah. She had it bad.

"No? You're just that aware of me, huh?" was his smug knowing reply.

She scowled and elbowed him less than gently in the gut so that he would not crowd her space so much. "No, you're about as stealthy as a Roman army general in his triumphal entry march – even when it is premature."

"Premature?" Jack scoffed. "Sweetheart, I got the elusive Miss Underwood. You didn't Assassinate, kill or get _any_ kind of points today."

Oh and wasn't that just like Jack to take all the credit and glory? If she hadn't been willing to play bait, if she hadn't known how to have Rose leak the where and when of her return to campus, he would have gotten _nada_ today as well too. The pompous prick.

She didn't say any of this of course. She didn't want him to know how well she orchestrated and manipulated him. Or the reason that she had not Assassinated anyone lately was because currently her target was Howard, her own keeper. All she did was shrug and point out diffidently, "Well, it really isn't about how many points I get, is it? My team stole another flag today, didn't they?"

They had. While everyone was watching her dance about dodging Underwood, Samberly and Rose had been able to ambush the Roxxon team's keeper (with the aid of the drone that Samberly and Howard had constructed together) and acquired the team's flag – a party favors confetti rocket.

"That's not the bet!" he protested.

"You're right. The charity prize is what matters though," she hastily interrupted, and then raising her voice slightly so that their eavesdroppers could catch every word, "But I have all day tomorrow to make sure that you are my slave for a week too. It is going to be so nice to have you take care of my dry cleaning and other such errands."

And then with a dismissive toss of her pretty dark locks, she spun on her heel and left. She hoped that their little drama had given Jarvis and Ana enough time to sneak Howard into her dorm for the night.

~A~

 _Day 7…_

 ** _7:56am_**

 **Peggy:** _is your ride here yet?_

 **Howard:** _not yet. She's running a little late_

 **Peggy:** how late?!

 **Howard:** just a few minutes. Keep your panties on.

 **Howard:** unless you go commando of course

 **Howard:** do you?

 **Howard:** out of curiosity, why do they call it going commando?

Peggy was saved from having to give a response to this inanity (or was it insanity?) by his next message: _she's here._

The 'she' was his ride. The reason he needed one so badly was that this was the first time Howard had been on campus all week.

Howard was crap at paintball games. He could make the toys like the drones to help them. He could tinker with the Council-provided guns to improve their aim. But he could shoot for shit himself. And because he had the excellent ability to piss people off, from the start they all knew that almost everyone would be gunning for him – possibly in the hopes to shoot him in the gonads.

But despite all this, he had wanted to be part of their team. He wanted the money to go their cause, and he wanted to show that brains beats out brawn – 'the age of the geek, baby'.

So they had made good use of him – especially when their team's flag turned out to be a bottle of erotic lubricant called 'Midnight Oil'.

In a masterful stroke of psychological warfare (if she did say so herself), Peggy had encouraged Howard to stay off campus as much as possible. By doing so, they signaled to everyone that he was their keeper. For why else would he skip all of his classes? Thus, increasing his target value.

The one class he refused to skip was his lab class. Peggy suspected that it was partly to flirt with his lab partner Maria and partly to pick the brains of his professor for his latest invention. She wasn't going to complain though, because she was going to use his ridiculous get-out-of-being-shot plan as a diversion so that she could make it to her own class.

As soon as she had received Howard's text, she opened her old freshmen year roommate Colleen's bedroom window, climbed out, and began shimmying down the drainpipe.

Jack could wait all he liked for her at her fire escape.

Or he could waste his time searching for her through the mad mob of people trying to shoot Howard as soon as he made his dash out of their dorms (which they had had Angie 'accidentally' let it be known that he was there).

But he wasn't going to find her.

When she reached the bottom, Ana sent her a snapshot of Howard giving the two-finger salute to the frustrated crowd while he hid behind the voluptuous form of his savior – the twenty-something female campus security guard who was speeding him across campus to his lab class like she was 007 to his damsel-in-distress. No one was going to risk messing with her.

To Ana, she replied: _only Howard_

She was sitting in her seat, laptop out, waiting to take notes, when Jack rushed in, panting and out of breath. When he saw her, he scowled.

She did a little finger wave and smiled.

Their professor was in the middle of roll call, when her phone screen lit up.

 **Jack:** _I'll get you, my pretty. And your mangy mutt Starky too_

Surreptitiously, she sent back: _promises, promises_

Mentally, she thought _'Oh but the plans I have for you'._

~.~

 ** _4:42pm_**

Just as Jack was exiting his last class of the day, he received a message alert, and he wondered at her sense of timing.

 **Peggy:** _I was bored waiting for you to make good on your promise, so…_

It was another picture message. But not one of the titillating variety.

It was a snapshot of a silver paperweight that was a replica of some abstract artwork titled 'The Obelisk'. And it was sitting on the cafeteria table where she was contentedly munching on fish and chips.

Blast it. She had found Reinhardt. He was an elusive son-of-a-bitch from a rival fraternity. His team called themselves Hydra, and no one from the Sigma Sigma Rho frat, had been able to find him all week.

He was burning with curiosity to find out how she managed it, but his pride would not allow him to. So instead…

 **Jack:** _Be careful what you wish for_

~.~

 ** _6:15pm_**

There was still no sign of Jack.

And that had her majorly worried.

Not that he would be successful at ambushing her. No, not at all.

But more so the fact, that he was no longer dancing to her tune. And she had plans, damn it.

So she stooped to fighting dirty.

~.~

 ** _6:32pm_**

 _Ding!_

Jack silently cursed. He had forgotten to silence his phone, and his message alert had gotten him the attention of Mrs. Frye. He didn't need her noticing him in the general area of the roof access. Daniel had been banned from the library this week for his repeated unauthorized use, and she knew that he was Daniel's teammate in this 'wretched' game.

He let out a not so silent curse that earned him Mrs. Frye's evil eye.

Peggy's latest pic message was gloating, ominous, and erotic all rolled into one.

It was of Peggy sandwiched between two cheerleaders, both of whom had white splatters across their chests, two to be exact. (He let out a little groan at the mental picture of her sighting down the barrel, carefully aiming at each of their breasts and…). And the pic's caption was: _Gotcha_

Shit. He didn't know which of those girls had had him as a target. But it didn't matter. She was coming for him.

~.~

 ** _7:31pm_**

 **Peggy:** _staking out my tea suppliers? Clever_

 **Peggy:** _but unfortunately for you I am just as lucky with the campus guards as Howard is_

 **Jack:** _lucky?_

 **Jack:** _first cheerleaders, now guards. You do get around._

 **Peggy:** _Ew. No._

 **Peggy:** _they make great getaway drivers and spies tho_

 **Peggy:** _I'll enjoy marking you as mine in pretty white paint_

Her fantasy of smearing that paint all across his sweaty chest as he writhed underneath her was interrupted first by his response: _not if Daniel marks you first_

And then by a sharp sting as a paintball splattered against her shoulder – bruising her right shoulder just above her other one. Son-of-a-bloody-bitch.

She managed to duck behind a park bench and dodge the next shot, and the next when she made it to the relative safety of a tree.

She knew three things when she managed to make it to the next tree as well. One, Daniel was herding her. He was too good of a shot to keep missing her like this. Two, he was herding her towards the plaza outside the drama auditorium where the guards had told her that Jack had been loitering about for the past few hours (her favorite tea cart was there). And three, Daniel was not protecting Ramirez anymore.

Neither of the cheerleaders that she had shot this afternoon had had Jack. She didn't know who did. Neither had they had Ramirez, but they were roommates with one of the Council members, and they had seen the alert on her computer that Jack had completed the transfer of keeper-ship to Ramirez, which he had attempted to do earlier this week.

So in between dodging purposely half-assed potshots, she texted the rest of her team: _bait taken. Operation Get Ricky is a go._

~.~

 ** _7:37.15 pm_**

Peggy found herself once more crouching behind some garbage bins.

But unlike the ones that she had taken refuge from when on the run from Dottie, these ones had been recently emptied, so with each jarring shot that Jack fired at her, the more they rattled and threatened to tip over.

She thought she was done for, as Jack had far better coverage behind the plaza's sundial which had much broader and certainly more unmovable base.

She knew she was done for though, when Jack's perfectly coiffed hair became marred by paint that was much darker than her own.

She tracked the angle of the shot and knew that from that trajectory it could only have come from a sniper on the auditorium roof. A sniper who had a perfect angle on her and all of her stolen and captured flags.

And she had no way of finding cover.

~.~

 ** _7:37.46 pm_**

One second, Jack was making those ridiculous trash cans dance. The next, his brains were rattling around the inside of his head and his hair dripping wet goo.

But the angle was all wrong. At least for him to be hit by Peggy.

Later, Jack would chalk up what he did to his head injury.

But all Jack knew in that moment, the moment that he realized that the bastard who had shot him was going to get Peggy too, he just knew that he could not let that happen. He _had_ to get to her. He had to make sure she kept all her hard-won flags.

And so he found himself vaulting over the sun-dial, barreling into the trash cans, knocking Carter to the ground, and covering her with his body.

~.~

 ** _7:38.21 pm_**

And improbably, the way the trash cans fell offered more coverage from the sniper than they had when upright.

And while they lay there, panting and waiting for campus security to clear the bastard off the roof like they had been doing Daniel all week, Peggy looked up at him from beneath her dark lashes, her eyes wide with …some indiscernible emotion at least to him.

When there was a break in the shooting, she leaned up and kissed his cheek, whispering, "Thank you, Jack. I'll get the bloody – "

He yanked her back against him so hard that it knocked the breath out of her, hissing, "Stay the bloody hell down! Your vets matter more."

She stayed down, and she only moved when she dug out her phone.

And for some bizarre reason, this made him far happier than it should have. He didn't even get all that miffed when he learned from both her and Ramirez that Stark's Brit buddy, Daniel's bowling buddy, and that lab-rat Samberly had taken him out and captured their flag – a vial of grade A Hollywood fake blood.

"For someone who just lost a bet, you sure are smiling a lot."

He looked down at her and drawled, "Well, sweetheart, no matter which of us won, I am still guaranteed a romping good time."

"Oh, you have _no_ idea," she promised huskily.

~A~

 _Saturday Morning_

Jack woke stiff and sore and mostly for the right reasons.

Peggy had made good on her promises.

His wrists burned from the chafing he had gotten from her silver handcuffs.

His thighs and legs, from the rope she had used to demonstrate her skill with _restraints_.

His skin prickled still from where she did body shots off of him with Tequila, salt, and lime.

Or perhaps it was from where she smeared white paint all over his chest as she rode him into her completion again and again and again, while keeping him on perpetual edge until the very last.

Jack woke to find her gone. No rope, no Tequila, no handcuffs. No sign that she had ever been there other than the marks on his body.

Especially the white paint handprints and the smear that read _MINE._


	8. Addicted

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 8: Addicted

* * *

Peggy recalled a time when she had been able to say that sex with Jack had not changed their relationship one iota.

That was no longer the case.

It might have been maybe after that second or third time, but after that sexually charged week of feverish competition…forget about it.

She equated this change in her reaction to him to being like someone who has tried second or third rate crack and being able to honestly say that they could walk away from it, but then sampling the grade A pure stuff and as a result becoming the worst kind of junkie.

She wanted him. Like all the time.

Her first warning of this coming change should have been when she couldn't make it out the week before she was practically begging for it like a wanton bint in a semi-public area all over a piano. But a few days later when he had so willingly placed his trust in her and let her have her way like that with him, (and not just because he did not want to welch on a bet), that had been the point of no return.

And now? Now they were screwing like rabbits wherever and whenever they could.

The problem was the availability of their dorm rooms was becoming extremely limited.

Daniel banned them at least until Krzminski replaced his noise canceling headphones that he broke when he borrowed them, and Angie was making less frequent trips to see her family on the weekends the closer they got to midterms and was staying more and more in their dorm-suite to study.

They had needed to get pretty creative in locations whenever either one of them had the itch. (And both of them seemed to have been infected to poison ivy-level itchiness.) But Lehigh University was no Hogwarts. There were no secret passageways, convenient broom closets, or Rooms of Requirement.

There was a Mrs. Frye however, and she was as vigilant of the library as Argus Filch was the magical halls of Hogwarts. And when she had nearly caught them in one of the quiet reading rooms (she was not sure if the woman bought her story of trying to find her 'lucky earring' underneath Jack's table), they had tried to relocate to the little used study nook in her dorm building. It was notorious for having bad reception and internet, so hardly anyone ever went there.

But apparently that was exactly what Rose needed. No internet distractions.

Peggy had managed to hear the doorknob twisting just in time to pull Jack down on top of her right behind the couch and muffle his curse.

It took them several moments to gain the courage to take advantage of Rose's rustling through her bag and pulling out spiral paper notebooks and textbooks (old school dame she was) and stealthily crawl to the door to make their escape.

Thankfully, her formidable resident advisor's dire warnings of the fate that awaited anyone who disturbed her had cleared the hallway. So they were able to straighten their clothes and hair. And perhaps to any passerby the tension between them would be mistaken for their usual competitive spats rather than that of angsty sexual frustration.

As soon as they were outside and less likely to be overheard, Peggy muttered irritably (yes, muttered, not whined), "If we can't have sex what do we do now? Go to a movie?"

Jack stopped looking at his reflection and attempting to flatten his thoroughly raked through by her fingers hair to shoot her a surprised look. "What? Like a date?"

His surprised tone hurt a little. Well, like a lot. It seems she had fallen like most girls into the trap that just because a guy wanted you a lot sexually then that meant that he wanted _you._ How in the world had she forgotten that this was Her-and-Jack? _He_ wanted the pain in the ass woman, the bitch who has been a thorn in his side for two years, for something more than a quick roll in the sack? As if.

To cover up the pain she felt and to move past the awkward silence that had grown between them, she shrugged and with all the indifference that she could muster, she said, "It's that or study it seems."

She couldn't quite look him in the eyes though, so she didn't see his reaction, but she certainly heard it in the incredulity of his hissed:

"' _Study'?_ I am not your study-buddy Daniel, Marge."

"No, you're my fuck-buddy Jack, Jack."

She meant to hiss it right back, to make it biting, but she didn't have the energy for it anymore, their game. So it came out more as a tired sigh, with perhaps a far too revealing hint of longing.

Jack said nothing, not for several long agonizing moments, which meant that he had picked up on that hint. Of course, he had. Jack Thompson, Dooley's favorite student, was no slouch in the being observant department.

She frantically scrambled for some way to extricate herself gracefully from this mortifying situation, but it was to no avail. And then…

"So date it is then."

She froze. He had said that so evenly that she couldn't tell if it was said out of pity, resignation, guilt, obligation, desire, or whatever other reason he might offer this lifeline of an invitation. She wished she had been looking at him – was looking at him – so that she could tell. But she couldn't. She was frozen.

She was goddamn Peggy Carter, former top student of the Law department, in the running for Valedictorian at Lehigh University next year, and the winner of The Most Badass of the Annual Charity Games event. But she could not do relationships and feelings to save her life.

And then…

And then Jack saved her from herself. With a light nudge of his shoulder against hers, he unfroze her, and when he helpfully suggested, "Sherlock's playing…", she was able to look up and meet his eyes.

In those crystal blue pools, she did not see a drop of pity. Nor was there a look of resignation at finally being suckered into the dating ritual that most guys viewed as boring foreplay. Nor was there resentment at the belief that she had guilted him into finally complying with this ritual.

No, she saw hope. And a hint of wistfulness. So…

"The Robert Downey Jr version?" she asked, unable to keep from wrinkling her nose.

"No the modern day BBC one. It's one of those Fathom Events." At her relieved look, he smirked, "Not an Iron Man fan?"

She chuckled, more with relief that they were talking superficial stuff like graphic novels and movies than the more dangerous subjects like relationship defining, and answered equably, "No, I favor Captain America myself."

Jack snorted, but wisely only chose to say, "I am more of a Thor man."

"Of course you are," she scoffed, and reveling in the fact that they were on more familiar ground, she teasingly added, "He carries the biggest stick doesn't he?"

Jack too seemed more sure-footed. He was certainly back to his smart-mouth ways as he retorted, tongue-in-cheek and blue eyes dancing, "I wouldn't know. Avengers is not Deadpool. It's a kid-friendly audience, no full frontals."

She shoved him and spluttered, "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, yeah, before we argue interrogation techniques again…" Jack paused to bat at her now animated hands pacifyingly, even as he nervously asked, "I'll pick you up at 8?"

She shook her head. His car was way too noticeable. "I'll meet you there."

There was a fleeting look of disappointment, but he nodded his agreement, "Okay."

That fleeting look of disappointment made her wonder…so many things, but she was afraid to fall into that quagmire of thinking, so she cut it off before it could take root and briskly stated, "Okay. See you at 8."

And then she spun on her heel and marched herself right back to her dorm.

~A~

Peggy made it as far as her room, even as far as to standing in front of her closet, before she panicked.

She needed to talk to someone. She needed that someone to slap her silly but not judge.

Angie was in the next room, but she couldn't go to her. The reasons for not talking to Angie about this at all were still the same, but now perhaps even worse. Not only was she not ready to give explanations for the why's of what she was doing with Jack – whatever the hell it was now – but she was also extremely not yet ready to say to certain someones that it was now more than 'I just want to bloody fuck his brains out'.

Daniel knew of them. But she couldn't go to him either. It would be weird to spaz out to her ex about her first date with the guy she has been screwing for the past few weeks, who just also happened to be his roommate. Oh yeah, and he was his roommate, so no way was she going to voice her breakdown to the one person that Jack could potentially eavesdrop on.

She plopped to the ground before she passed out and pulled out her phone, scrolling through her contacts, looking for a possible name.

And right there, in the A's was – Ana.

Ana was non-judgmental, and she was certainly unafraid to tell it like it is. But if she told Ana, she would tell Jarvis. That's just how that disgustingly sweet couple worked.

As soon as she thought of Edwin, she knew that was the one person she wanted to tell – _had_ wanted to tell. She didn't care if at first he disapproved or gushed or admonished. She knew that eventually he would calm down and hear her out. And _that_ was exactly what she needed.

So she called him.

"Yes, Peggy?"

That wasn't the first thing he said to her. He had said hello, but when her only response was her still panicked breathing, it was no wonder he was concerned.

"I have to tell you something."

"Okay…"

"But you have to promise to keep it a secret."

When he began to hedge, she cut him off, "You can tell Ana. I don't mind. But you can't tell Howard or anyone else."

"Okay. I promise."

And because he had not hesitated more than a millisecond, she returned the favor.

"I am going on my first date tonight with Jack, and I have been physically intimate with him repeatedly for the past several weeks."

This time the pause was significantly longer, but eventually Jarvis cautiously inquired, "By 'physically intimate' do you mean…?"

"Sex, yes," she curtly answered.

There was yet another pause, and then an apologetic, "I'm sorry, Peggy, but if you are hoping that I will be your confessor tonight, I am feeling woefully inadequate. Not only am I not ordained, but I am struggling to wrap my head around this."

She wanted to say 'me too', but she was going to wait for him to recover before she hit him with that emotional baggage. So instead, she did her best to be reassuring, "I don't need a confessor, just a friend."

"Well that I _can_ do," he asserted with some relief, only adding with hesitant curiosity, "But if you don't mind, I just have to know."

"Know what?"

"If this has been going on for weeks, how has no one else found out? Especially your roommates?"

She laughed. She couldn't help herself. If he only knew how many times she had asked that herself when Angie had nearly caught them, and Daniel, well…

"Angie's pretty busy," she reasoned, "And Daniel and all of the frat house know already. But they aren't going to tell Howard. Jack has had them swear it on whatever SSR Bro-Code Bible they have."

"Oh." Jarvis took a moment to puzzle over this, and then he asked more business-like, "So what can I do for you as a friend, Miss Carter?"

Taking a deep breath, she blurted, "What does a girl wear on a first date with a guy she has been screwing for weeks and with whom she has such a complicated history with?"

"Well, that is more of a question for Ana, but as she is away at night class, I will do my best."

~A~

Daniel had never been more relieved to hear his phone buzz from an incoming call.

If he did not leave that room right that minute, he would be in serious danger of losing his man-card (as defined by the chauvinistic SSR Bro-code).

Jack had come barreling into their common room ranting and raving like a mad man, starting off with wanting a drink but not wanting a drink _"because then I'll keep drinking and be drunk, and then what will she think of me?"_ and then from there it proceeded to the worst case of sober word vomit he had ever heard.

 _"And why-oh-why Danny did I ask Carter out on a date? I'll tell you why – because I am a greedy bastard who wants more than just mind-blowing sex with a hot woman. But this isn't just any hot woman. This is Carter. And what if I mess this up? I may put on a brave face but I am a nervous wreck half the time_ " (He certainly was now) _"because underneath it all, I know my old man is right and that I am nothing but a screw up. And Daniel, I asked her out to Sherlock. She seems to have seen it already. Of course, she has. It's on Netflix. Most girls I know would rather I take them to something new, or at least romantic. But Carter isn't like most girls…"_

And so it went. And no matter how much, he tried to reassure the man, Jack found something else to panic over.

So yeah, Daniel was in danger of squealing with 'girlish' glee, because if Jack was losing his shit over this, then he actually cared for Peggy. A more sobering thought was that if Peggy had this much power over him now, and they actually started to admit how crazy they were for each other? Then Jack was the one who was at risk of becoming heartbroken.

The second his bedroom door is closed, he answered his phone, greeting Jarvis with "I take it you know?"

"About a certain unlikely couple going to see _The Abominable Bride_?"

With a huge sigh of relief and a wicked grin, he asked, "How good are you at sneaking into theaters?"

"Mr. Sousa, 'Stealthy' is my middle name."


	9. Secrets

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 9: Secrets

* * *

 _He knows._

~A~

 _One hour earlier…_

Howard was sitting in the theater lobby munching on popcorn, waiting for his date to inexplicably get done primping in the bathroom so that they could go sit in a dark theater, when he saw _Them_.

A tall, skinny blonde-haired man and a curvy brunette walking out of theater #3, holding hands. And it was not just any blonde and brunette, but it was Jack bloody Thompson and Peggy Carter. And did he mention that they were holding hands?

What. The. Bloody. Hell?

It wasn't just that they were holding hands, but Peggy was looking up at that – that… _beastly_ arrogant prick of a man with that look of hers. It was her look of hope and bemused wonder, along with that nervous nibbling of her lower lip, and… and it was just wrong.

The last time he had seen that look on her face she was in the early stages of dating Steve.

Jack Thompson did not deserve that look. He did not deserve even breathing the same air as her, much less be holding hands.

Howard found himself abandoning his popcorn and stalking after the couple as they were heading out the exit doors. He was going to talk some sense into Peggy and somehow make sure that the bastard didn't lay another finger on his friend's girl.

He was nearly to the double doors himself, when not one but two sets of hands grabbed him by the shoulders and upper arms and frog marched him into the nearest men's restroom.

When he saw the reflections of the two men who nabbed him in the bathroom's mirror, he could not believe his eyes.

He had expected goons of his competitors, or maybe some Sigma Sigma Rho buddies of Thompson's. Well, one of them was, but he had thought that Daniel Sousa was Peggy's friend too.

And he would have never believed that Jarvis – Jarvis! – would betray him and Peggy like this.

His shock had caused him to slump in their hold so they loosened their grip and let him go. When he spun around to face them, he could see that while they were giving him space, they were not giving him enough to allow him to slip past them.

At this he exploded.

 _"What the fuck?!"_

"We're trying to save you from yourself," Sousa patronizingly explained.

"Save me? Save _me_? What about Peggy?"

"And that attitude right there just goes to show that you need saving. How do you think Peggy would react if she found out that you thought she needed saving?" Sousa retorted exasperatedly.

With equal exasperation, Howard whirled to glare at his supposed friend, " _Eh tu, Brute?_ "

Jarvis shrugged calmly, "She's happy. It's the happiest I have seen her since she started mourning Steve Rogers. No offense, Mr. Sousa."

"None taken, Mr. Jarvis," Sousa grunted.

"But how can she be? It's Jack Thompson," he quarreled. "He'll hurt her."

"I don't think he will, Howard," Jarvis mused. "I saw how he was with her tonight. The way he looked at her when she was not aware, the last time I saw that kind of expression on a man's face it was on photos of my own self when I first started dating Ana."

He scoffed, "Well, he's nothing like you, Jarvis."

"If he's half the man I am, he won't hurt her, at least not intentionally," his friend retorted with far more backbone than he usually did with him.

"It doesn't have to be intentional. Those two fight like cats and dogs. It will never work, and the break up will be explosive."

"I don't know how they work, but they do work, Stark. I've seen it, and heard more than I have cared to," Sousa interjected. "And not to sound biblical and all, but I think in the case of 'iron sharpens iron', they make each other stronger and better."

Howard wanted to reply with something along the lines of 'yeah, well, their mutual iron sharpening will only make their tongues that more capable of carving each other's hearts out', but he couldn't. He was stuck more on the first part of Sousa's statement.

"How long has this been going on?" he asked suspiciously.

Jarvis looked to Sousa, who replied matter-of-factly like a man ripping off a Band-Aid, "Since the beginning of the semester, maybe the end of last."

If the man's intent was to soften the blow, he needn't have bothered. It was like he had been punched in the gut. Peggy, one of the few people he could truly call his friend, who was practically a sister to him, had been seeing a guy for over two months, possibly two and a half, and she hadn't felt like she could tell him. And by the looks of it, she hadn't told Jarvis until recently, most likely so that he wouldn't find out.

And that hurt. It hurt, not because he felt betrayed by her, but more because he felt like had let her down. She hadn't trusted him to be supportive of her, to be there for her, and it looked like she had been right not to.

His shoulders slumped, and with a weariness he had not let himself express in front of others, he sighed, "I won't go after them."

The two men took their time to gauge his sincerity, but Jarvis stepped back first.

Howard walked past them without a word, or at least that is what he intended to do, but when he reached the door, he turned back to his friend and said, "Tell Peggy that when she's ready, I'll listen."

And then he went to face the music that was most likely by now his irate date.

~A~

It had been an almost perfect evening.

It had been a little awkward at first as they readjusted their usual pattern of communication. Nonverbally, lately it seemed that they only touched when trying to arouse the other, and while also lately their words more often than not were meant to do the same, there were still the times that there were exchanges of barbs and digs, especially when they were sparring in class.

So it was unusual when the touches were innocent – his hand at her back as he guided her to their seats, both at the theater and then to the little French bistro they went to afterwards, their hands grazing as they reached into the popcorn bag at the same time, her hand patting his arm when he jumped apparently forgetting when exactly the 'Bride' appears out of seemingly nowhere.

But they were able to get past it and have a good time.

At the bistro, they talked of their families and their mutual struggles with living up to their parents' expectations. She even told him a little bit about Fred, he told her about his high school sweetheart, and they exchanged stories about even more awkward dates than this.

And then just as he was walking her to her car…

 **Daniel S.:** _Stark knows. He spotted you at the theater._

 **Edwin J.:** _He knows._

 **Edwin J.:** _He promised to listen when you are ready to talk._

Before she could really comprehend all of what that meant, Jack was saying, "Stark saw us at the theater."

"I know. Daniel and Jarvis sent me a text," she found herself whispering. "Edwin thinks he'll listen if I talk to him."

Jack went momentarily still and then his hands went into his pockets and he began to fidget with what she suspected were his keys. It was an oddly endearing sign of when he was nervous, especially when paired with his oh-so-casual, "And if you were to talk to him, what would you say?"

She cocked her hip against her car and crossed her arms, pretending it was due to the cool night air rather than a need to comfort herself as she admitted, "I don't know. It depends…"

"On what?" he quietly prompted, dropping his nonchalant air to look at her with genuine curiosity.

She looked up at him and met his dark blue gaze, bravely saying, "On whether or not you truly meant that what you said about having a good time or whether that is just what you say to all the girls that you never mean to call back. On whether you want this to continue or whether you think we should stop this right now before it gets anymore out of hand."

Jack looked at her steadily for a moment, his face and eyes unreadable in the dim light that the streetlamp provided, and then his hands were out of his pockets and somehow on either side of her head on her car, even before she could blink.

He leaned down, forcing her to lean back, and over the loud thudding of the pounding blood in her ears and her quick nervous breaths, she heard him lowly rasp into her ear with almost deadly earnestness, "One, I am always honest with you and have never lied to you, Marge. I meant what I said. And two, I don't want to stop _ever_."

And then he kissed her – long, hard, and deep – until she was nothing but a breathy panting mess.

When he was done with her (kissing her that is), she managed to stutter out, "Al-alright. I'll – I'll tell him that. 'That' as in th-that's the plan, and – and I want it too."

If he hadn't turned her legs to jelly, she would have kneed him in the groin for his self-satisfied and amused smirk. As she couldn't though, she made her parting shot as she slid into her car be:

"And that's what I'll tell Angie too."

~A~

Eventually, Peggy did talk to Howard. It took her about 24 hours, but that only had half to do with her dreading it. The other half was due to their busy schedules.

He took it far calmer than she expected. He let her get it all out, and only asked once if Jack was 'being a smooth talking son of a bitch just so he can keep screwing the daylights out of you?'

And when she had said, "of course, he is, but it is not just that", he had nodded once in acceptance, trusting her instincts, and only cautioned, "I'll not say another word then and do my best not to antagonize him, but, Peggy, if he breaks your heart, you can be damn sure I won't be offering him a job." What was left unsaid was more than just 'like I did Wilkes' but also 'I will make him un-hirable'.

As intense as that conversation was with Howard, she was far more unsettled by her confessional conversation with Angie.

The night of her date, she came home to find Angie quoting Shakespeare.

"Well, that's apropos."

Angie stopped her recitation to look at her quizzically, "What is?"

"That you're quoting _Much Ado About Nothing,_ " she replied taking off her jacket and hanging it up before plopping on the couch.

"And why is that?" Angie prompted, she asked as she cleared off the other end of the couch to join her.

"Because I have a confession to make," Peggy stated. "I am Beatrice to Jack Thompson's Benedick."

Instead of the shock and amazement or gushing 'Oh my gosh! How did that happen? Details, details, woman!', she got a sly smirk and a confession of her own: "I know."

"You know?"

Angie nodded smugly, "I know. Geez, English, I am a little hurt that you don't think I have observation skills. I am a drama major after all. Human nature is what we study."

"But – but – _how do you know_?" Peggy stammered in bewilderment.

Angie beamed with pride as she began counting off on her fingers, "Well, one, I have been your roommate for two years. I know when you're getting somethin' somethin' and when you're not. When you were ready to date again and weren't, and when you and Daniel broke things off before you got to that level, you were a right cranky bitch, morning, noon, and night. But after Wilkes dumped you, not even spending the holidays with the fam brought you that far down. And when Howard pulled that douche hiring move with Wilkes, there was a far too decided pep to your step for it to be anything else.

"And two, you didn't tell me who it was, so it must be someone that you had reservations about. Only if it was someone you didn't know about, you would have asked me for the down low on him, so it must be someone you did. Three, this was confirmed when I found a Sigma Sigma Rho hoodie in your laundry one day…

Peggy let out a low groan of dismay at this. One of the times she had left the frat house, it had been raining and she hadn't had her jacket with her. Jack would have a field day with this if he ever found out that she had given herself away because of that.

"…and four, I have always thought you had that kind of chemistry between the two of you, and you should have jumped his bones ages ago, and – "

"You thought that?!"

Peggy couldn't believe her ears, nor could she believe her eyes when her friend bobbed her pretty head in the affirmative. "But if you knew all of this, why didn't you say anything?"

At this, Angie's smug smile faltered a little. "Well, at first, I figured I would let you have your secret forbidden romance. That always spices things up a little, you know? So I made sure to have 'rehearsals' or would go out to see my family more, so I could give you two space."

"But…?" Peggy prompted when the smile completely failed and her friend began to nervously bite her lip and fidget with her jacket strings in her hands.

" _But…_ " Angie sighed dramatically. "I got a little passive-aggressive after a while, when it became _weeks_ and you still weren't telling me anything."

"So the visits to your family stopped and you all of a sudden needed to study 'away from distractions'?" Peggy asked. It was more rhetorical as all the pieces began to fall into place.

"I did need to study, but I kind of made sure to do it when it would most likely interfere with your guys' – er – time together," Angie admitted sheepishly.

Peggy thought about all the frustrating times of getting worked up from non-stop text messages all day and not being able to act on it, of getting nearly caught by Mrs. Frye (oh dear God, please let it have been nearly), and she wanted to reprimand Angie for not just telling her that she knew. If she could have kept the fact that she knew about the two of them herself for that long, she could have been trusted not to let it loose on the rumor mill and of getting back to Howard.

But then Peggy realized whose fault it really was that Angie had not felt that she could do so. It was a sad commentary on her judgment that she had trusted Jack's frat brothers to keep mum about their secret before she had trusted her very own best girlfriend's discretion.

"I am sorry, Angie. I should have told you from the start. I should have trusted you."

"Yes, you should have," Angie declared. Her words might have seemed harsh, but her tone was kind. "Out of curiosity, why now?"

So Peggy told her, and as she told her, she realized she might have another reason to forgive Angie's passive-aggressiveness. If it hadn't been for her sabotaging hers and Jack's 'together time', they might never had gotten the courage to be more than whatever it was that they had been to each other.

As disconcerting as it was to find out Angie had suspected the two of them all along and that she had sadly misjudged his friend's ability to keep a secret, what was more unsettling was the last question Angie had asked her.

"Hey, English?"

"Yes, Angie?"

"I was wondering…if not now but some time down the road, can you see yourself introducing Jack to your family? You couldn't with Jason, but could you one day with Jack?"

"I honestly don't know, Angie."

She didn't know. But she could admit, even if only to herself, that she was far more terrified at the idea of doing so with Jack, rather than just simply reluctant which she had been with Jason.

And that had to mean something, right?

* * *

 **A/N:** I hope you enjoyed their First Date Night. If you did, give a little love and review. If you didn't, that's okay. Kind, constructive criticism and feedback is always appreciated.

... and Happy Valentine's Day!


	10. Family

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 10: Family

* * *

"So where are you taking me, Marge?"

"It's a surprise, sweetheart. You don't really expect me to just tell you, do you?" Peggy answered cheekily, as she changed lanes to exit the freeway.

"Carter."

Peggy wanted to point out that saying her name in that rebuking tone had gotten him nowhere when he lost yet another bet to her and she got to drive his car to their mystery destination, but she decided to cut him a little slack.

"You know how you have been wanting to know how I became so good of a shot?"

"Yeah," he said slowly and warily.

"Well," she continued as she made another turn, taking them down a two lane winding road. "I am taking you to the secret to my success."

Jack looked at her quizzically for a few moments and then… (wait for it)… he spotted the sign: **Phillips' Shooting Range 2.4 miles.**

"To be honest, I always thought it was because of Rogers."

"Hmm…" she mused. "No, I knew how to shoot before I met him. My father and brother taught me the basics growing up, and I actually taught Steve, taking him out to a firing range a few times, before he joined up. But I didn't become proficient at it until afterwards."

She didn't say anything more. She couldn't. She was about to reveal a big part of herself today, and she was not sure she could do much more than that.

Jack seemed to pick up on that and was quiet for the rest of the ride, and when they got to the firing range, he only arched an eyebrow at her. Somehow, she knew that he was asking why this particular shooting range when there were a few that were much closer to the university. She knew she would have if the roles were reversed.

Mustering up all the courage that she had in her, she put the car in park, took a deep breath, and explained, "Steve Rogers is always going to be a big part of my life. I am never going to forget him. A large part of why I want to be an F.B.I. agent is because of him, but even more than that, his family is still going to be a major part of my life."

Turning to fully face him and look him in the eye, she concluded, "And if we are going to do this, then from the start you need to know that."

Before Jack could reply to this, there was great big booming voice yelling at her from across the parking lot, "Hey Peggy!"

"His timing sucks as always," she muttered, half in disgruntlement to herself and half in apology to Jack.

"And he is?" Jack queried.

But again before she could explain further, the car was surrounded by half a dozen well-muscled men, sporting high-top haircuts, and carrying various types of guns. Their expressions ranged from serious to impatient to the goofiest of grins.

Turning back to Jack, she said, "Thompson, I would like you to meet the Howling Commandos."

~A~

 _A few hours later..._

"Thompson, come with me," said that great big booming voice of Sergeant Dugan, just as he clapped his big meaty paw on Jack's shoulder.

At his hesitation, Dugan grabbed one of the beers from his hand, passing it off to one of the other Commandos – he thinks it was the guy that went by 'Pinky', and said, "The lady has gone to the powder room. They'll get it to her. Join me out on the patio while I have a smoke."

Seeing as he did not have much choice, he took a swig of his own beer and followed the man out. If that wasn't nerve-wracking enough, it was to the sound of jeering calls of "It was nice knowing you, Blondie!" and "Don't go easy on him, Sarge!"

Once outside, he didn't have long to wait for the opening line of 'The Talk'.

After Dugan lit up his cigar and took a few puffs, he turned to Jack, stating, "So you seemed to have enjoyed yourself today. Not too awkward, I hope."

It had of course been awkward, and it bit overwhelming at times. He was meeting Peggy's chosen family, the family of her dead first love (he didn't count that Fred guy). They were also combat veterans. They had seen death, fought against it, and partnered with it, while he had lived his safe cozy life in the States because of them. Meeting them was daunting as all get out.

But they had been for the most part, pretty welcoming. He couldn't keep track of all their names as they switched back and forth between their given names and their call signs like 'Pinky' or 'Happy', which he thought that they did half the time to purposefully throw him off his game. The youngest known as 'Junior' warmed up to him the most, especially after he tried to help him out with his earlier claim that he saw a 'yeti not an abominable snowman'.

"Yeah, it was fun," he finally confirmed.

"My boys didn't give you too hard of a time?"

Jack, again, took his time answering, for somehow he knew that those piercing blue eyes would be able to detect anything less than the truth.

No one had specifically gotten into his face about his intentions towards Peggy. No one except Jim Morita, that is.

Upon first glance, Jack knew Jim Morita to be a tough son of a gun. He was still fighting among the ranks, even while being in his late-thirties. Later, Jack was to found out that the man was their communications expert, not their explosive expert, but from what he had gathered from his little side-chat with the man at the shooting range, he knew enough.

 _"If you hurt Roger's girl, I will attach your nuts to blasting caps."_

And he had reinforced this message later, when they arrived at the cantina for happy hour, he asked Jones (the unit's multi-lingual) what the word was for 'nuts' in all the languages he knows.

Gabe Jones must have been in on the joke/threat because he had looked at Jack with an evil grin as he recited them all: _'huevos, les coucougnettes, cogliani, eier,_ _gāo wán…'_

Shifting uncomfortably at the remembrance of Morita's ... _promise_ , he answered honestly, "Not too bad. But they did get their point across."

Dugan nodded in satisfaction, declaring, "Good then I won't have to waste my breath belaying – no that's not right… _belabor_ , that's the word – belaboring the point."

He gave a few more puffs on his cigar before continuing.

"I have just been curious, ever since Peggy told us about the pair of you lovebirds and asked us to meet you, how you two worked out that internship thing that you been competin' for."

When Jack didn't say anything, Dugan fixed a big beady blue eye on him and pressed, "So have you?"

Jack rubbed the back of his neck and hedged, "Er… not in so many words…"

It wasn't the most confident or convincing of statements, but Dugan must have seen something in his expression, because the man gave him a knowing nod and then said, "Now I ain't normally a man to talk out of turn, but I think it might help you to know that when I asked Peggy this same question, she said somethin' mighty interesting."

When he didn't say anything further, Jack prompted, "She did?"

 _Puff, puff_ went the cigar, and then, "She said that if you got it, she would be okay with that, because she made damn sure that you worked for it, no matter what your connections were and how good you kissed ass. And if she got it, she knows that you would be okay with it too. That you wouldn't chalk it up to some bullshit notion that it was only because of affirmative action. That right, Thompson?"

"Yeah, yeah, it is," he admitted, and he wasn't just saying that because the big man could pummel his ass with one hand tied behind his back. He really truly meant it.

But Dugan's question got his mind to thinking, and he really didn't like the conclusion it came to.

~A~

"So did I pass muster?" Jack asked as soon as they were alone in his room and had gotten the courage to ask.

Peggy paused in the act of kicking off her boots to question curiously,"Did you what?"

"Pass muster," he reiterated. "Did I get their approval? Or at least, did I get a period of grace before I have to worry about them taking me out into the middle of nowhere and warning me off of you?"

"Oh," she breathed as she caught on, and then her puzzled frown turned to a smile of amusement. "No, they liked you. And they wouldn't do anything like that…well, not unless they thought you were going to break my heart that is."

As this seemed to be the day for honesty, he muttered, "No, I think you are at more of a risk of breaking mine."

At this, Peggy moved to straddle him on the bed, her knees on either side of his thighs, one hand on his shoulder for balance, the other she used to brush his hair out of his eyes, so that she could stare into them as she coyly asked, "Is that right?

He slid his hand up her back, admitting, "Yes that's right. You're a heartbreaker." And because he could not help himself, he added sing-song-like, "…dream maker, love-ta– "

"Oh please," Peggy cut him off with an eye roll, even as she pushed him further back on the bed and teasingly began to nibble on his lips.

Jack didn't protest, but let her have her way with him. Later, however, he could have pointed out that while she made love to him sweetly and teasingly, his own lovemaking had been just short of desperate.

For he knew, that while Peggy might be okay with him getting the internship position, she would never be okay with _her_ not getting it.

And that would be the death knell for them.


	11. The Internship

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 11: The Internship

* * *

 _Sometime in late spring …_

"We need to talk."

Jack saved his paper, pushed away from his desk, and turned to face her, knowing with those four little words that this was no time to try to multitask.

If those four words hadn't clued him in, then her body language certainly would have. Her feet were in a classic fighter's stance – left foot forward, right foot back, canted slightly to the side to present a slimmer profile. Her fists were clenched, but her arms were crossed at her middle as if she was hugging herself.

Her face though was blank of any kind of emotion. She usually wore this kind of expression when he was the one on the offensive, when she was protecting her secrets and herself. Whatever this was about, she felt the need to protect herself from his answers. This was going to be bad, whatever this was.

When she still didn't say anything, he gamely cleared his throat and prompted, "Alright. What's up?"

Peggy's eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him for his sincerity. She must have been satisfied, or at least satisfied enough, because she forced herself to relax just enough to lean against his bedroom door, as if settling in for the long haul and finally blurted, "Something's wrong."

"I can see that," he agreed nodding at her screaming nonverbal cues, "But with what in particular?"

His tone had been intentionally on the condescending side he had to admit, but it was the best way he knew how to provoke Peggy past her mental mouth filter. 'Better out than in' is what his Gam-Gam always said (when it came to emotions, not bodily functions, for his grandmother was a lady after all). And boy did Carter let it out.

"With us!" she exclaimed frustratedly, propelling herself away from the door to start pacing, her arms gesticulating wildly as she listed her grievances. "With you. You have been acting weird lately. Becoming distant. Not texting as much. Letting my calls go to voicemail. Taking longer to return them. Coming up with excuses not to see me."

"They're not excuses. They're legitimate reasons," he argued logically, if somewhat defensively, and then because he had been raised that the 'best defense was a good offense' and because he was a pathological jackass, he had to take it one step too far and hit below the belt, archly asking, "And aren't you being a bit paranoid?"

Oh yes, he did. He just insinuated that his girlfriend, Peggy Carter, the Badass, was acting the stereotypical hysterical female, _to her face_. He was a dead man.

As soon as the words escaped his mouth, she stopped her pacing to fix him with a Look, and he could see his death in her icy glare.

"I am _not_ being paranoid. Nor am I being a jealous girlfriend," she retorted frostily. "Because that's just it. I don't think there is another girl or that you are using finals, exam papers, or meetings with your advisor or that Sigma Sigma Rho alumnus mentor you have as a way to fade me out or anything."

"But, Jack," and here her shoulders slumped and the fight seemed to go out of her, as she admitted, "After each and every one of those meetings and the closer we get to the end of the semester, you _do_ seem to avoid me."

Luckily for him, she didn't wait for him to defend himself, but after what she said next, he thought the excruciating discomfort of awkward silence would have been far more bearable. For with big sad, begging brown eyes and a forlorn sigh, she admitted:

"And I can't help but think that all of that just reminds you that they're going to decide soon who to send to the internship. And you're working up the nerve to end it – to end us."

~A~

 _A few weeks ago…_

"Jack, my boy, we need to talk."

"Ominous words, sir. But if you're about to tell me that there is another, I won't be too heartbroken. I never thought we were going steady," he asserted dryly. (He did _not_ say 'well, gee, and here I thought you summoned me down to your ostentatious gentlemen's country club to contemplate the universe in silence'. The old man might appreciate cheek. He did not appreciate 'impertinent lip'.)

Masters predictably smirked and chuckled a little, declaring, "That's why I like you, Thompson. You remind me of your grandfather. He had a twisted sense of humor just like that."

Jack accepted the glass of scotch that the man ordered for him with a nod of thanks, while asking sardonically, "But not like my father though?"

"No, not like your father. How he turned out to be such a stick in the mud, I'll never know," he acknowledged, but then hastened to add, "No disrespect to your old man. He is good at what he does. And I admire him for it."

Jack said nothing, just sipped the scotch and waited for his benefactor to start calling in his IOUs, for that is what this impromptu meeting certainly had to be about.

He didn't have to wait long. Masters did his own scotch sipping, smacked his lips in satisfaction a few times, and then asserted, "But I didn't come to talk to you about your family or their sense of humor or lack thereof." Fixing Jack with a Look, the kind that always reminded Jack of six-foot holes and funeral dirges, or one that promised you that a shit-ton of bricks was about to fall on your head, the man proclaimed, "Son, I have been hearing some disconcerting news about your latest dalliance."

"'Dalliance'?"

He tried to sound amused at the man's word choice, but he had no idea if he was at all successful. His mind was too busy racing hundreds of miles per minute to focus on that kind of insignificant detail. No, it had much more important matters – like _who the_ _fuck_ was he going to kill for gossiping about his love life with his department of justice benefactor and long-time family friend?

Vega and Blackwell came to mind. They hadn't liked the fact that he turned on them in The Game.

Or maybe it had been Flynn, the current Sigma Sigma Rho president. He had led the charge more against Peggy in the beginning. The misogynist pig had laid the groundwork, which, sadly, Jack had latched onto when he had felt his status of prof favorite threatened. Flynn was an even more insecure bastard than Jack was, and he had never liked Jack's popularity within the fraternity. He would have relished the chance to bring Jack's 'fling' to his benefactor's attention.

"Yes, with Margaret Carter." Masters swirled the remainders of his scotch at the bottom of his glass, as he shared, "I would have been the first to congratulate you for using romance to turn the girl's head so that she is distracted from the prize as it were, but it seems that even if that ever was your intent, she has turned the tables on you."

The bottom dropped out of Jack's stomach. He was losing his chance at the internship. If Masters was concerned that his prized racehorse was in danger of losing, then Carter being chosen over him was no longer a theoretical problem. Everything that he had been working so hard for…

He cleared his throat, eventually rasping out, "You think that they're going to give it to Peggy?"

"It's a strong possibility, unless…"

"Unless what?"

Masters downed the last of his scotch, rose up and collected his things, and only after he had made sure that the bartender saw his cash did he turn to Jack and say:

"You end it."

~A~

 _Present day…_

This time it was he who was skyrocketing around the room in agitation. At her words, he was out of his chair and protesting as vehemently as he could:

"End it? End us? Hell no, Carter! If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't need to 'work up the nerve' and play phasing out games with you. You would know."

Peggy took a step back both literally and figuratively, as she amended, "Alright. Poor choice of words. But you _have_ been thinking about it, haven't you?"

"Again, woman – _hell no_ ," he growled. These past few weeks would have been so much easier if had, but he hadn't. He had barely contemplated it as an option, and probably never would have if Masters hadn't brought it up. But if she was thinking that he had, did that mean that she had been entertaining the idea as a viable possibility for herself?

He had to know, so with far more bitter accusation than he intended he snapped, "Have you?"

"No!"

"Then _what the fuck_ is this?!" he cried out in what he thought was justifiable frustration.

"This is me telling you that I know there is something that you aren't telling me!" she fired back.

"Damn right, I am not telling you! I shouldn't have to!" he bellowed in outrage. He wanted to shake her, to pick her up and shake her. She should just know what it was already. She was the empathetic, intuitive one of them. How was it that she wasn't able to see his side of things? If he shook her, then maybe that would jolt those empathy synapses of hers.

As this wasn't a reasonable expectation and she couldn't seem to trust him, he wanted to leave. He wanted this conversation over. He wasn't ready to tell her.

But as she was standing between him and the door and he didn't really want to lay a hand on her in anger, all he could do was stand across his room and glare at her, as she bellowed back, "Shouldn't have to _what_?!"

This time he didn't just hear the anger and the accusations, he heard her pain. So he let go of some of his righteous indignation and confessed softly, "I shouldn't have to tell you that I want to have my cake and eat it too."

Peggy stared at him, blinking in confusion, before growling in aggravation, "What does _that_ mean?"

~A~

 _A week ago…_

"He told you to end it?"

"Yeah," Jack admitted with a disgusted huff.

Professor Dooley leaned back in his desk chair, rubbing his tired face with his hand, before eventually asking exasperatedly, "What purpose does that serve exactly? You're gonna have to help me out with this one."

Jack grimaced. One of the reasons he liked his academic advisor so much was that he was a straight shooter, a former law enforcement officer who was 'not into all those bullshit political games' that was rife in federal justice agencies. The man knew how to network, or clearly he never would have gotten to be Lehigh University's Criminal Justice department head, but the political sniping that Masters had asked Jack to do wasn't second nature to him. But Masters had known, and now apparently Dooley did too, that he was capable of it.

"He thinks it will show certain influential people my ability to be ruthless – you know that I am willing to purge myself of distractions, whatever they maybe to get the job done, and that I am willing to break her heart so that she would do poorly in her finals etc etc etc.," he explained disdainfully.

After he had gotten over his initial panic from finding out that the internship and his plans for his future were in jeopardy, he had been filled with roiling, stomach-turning disgust at Vernon's solution to his dilemma. He was still reeling from the wave of self-loathing that hit him like a tsunami that the man thought him capable of hurting Carter like that.

Dooley kindly didn't focus on that aspect, but rather on the stupidity of the powers-that-be, crowing, "Hah! They don't know your girl then, do they?"

Jack grinned, "No, they don't."

"So other than to tell me that Masters is meddling with the lives of my students again and being right manipulative bastard about it, why come tell me?"

Jack rubbed his jaw in thought, but not really knowing how else to phrase it, he admitted, "Well, it got me thinking, sir…does it only have to be one person that gets the internship?"

"Yes," Dooley confirmed regretfully, "the program allots only so many spaces, one each for the top ten criminal justice programs."

Jack's shoulders sagged in defeat. He was an ambitious bastard, but he didn't want to kill Peggy's dreams to get there. But neither did he want to abort his hopes and dreams for his career. He didn't want to do grunt work forever. He wanted to one day be able to lead men, to call the shots, to be a mover and a shaker. An internship would help to start that networking. An internship would…

Wait. _An_ internship. It didn't have to be _this_ internship, did it? It wouldn't have to be his dreams or hers, would it?

He leaned forward, asking eagerly, "Well, is the F.B.I. the only one that offers such a program?"

Dooley's eyes light up along with his sly canny grin, as he thoughtfully replied, "Now that you mention it, I don't think so. Let me look into it."

"Thanks, sir," he sighed both in surprise and relief.

His professor eyed the picture of his wife on his desk, slid in the direction of his couch, back to the picture and then finally to Jack, as he advised, "From my experience, Jack, a life's not worth living if all it is is 'the job' and being at the beck and call of people who look down upon you if you think otherwise".

Jack cleared his throat and studiously looked away from the couch that had shown signs of being slept on far too often, before asking, "When will you know, sir?"

"Give me a week."

~A~

 _Present day…_

Jack ignored her question, or at least he didn't answer it directly. She had after all not been willing for him to mentally prepare a more dignified and succinct explanation.

"I hadn't wanted to tell you anything, because I didn't want to get your hopes up. But I think I managed it so that not only can I have my cake and eat it too, but so can you," he stated cryptically, but now that he was sharing this, he couldn't help but grin like a maniac and bounce on the balls of his feet like an over-excited schoolboy. "Dooley's been working on it, but I think he can get me into the U.S. Marshall internship that way you can get the F.B.I. one. You're really the only other choice, if I don't go."

Peggy stared at him flabbergasted. Clearly she was no longer lost in his cake-eating metaphor.

He was mentally counting the seconds that he had rendered her speechless ( _'21 Mississippi, 22, 23…'_ ), when she finally managed to croak out, "Why?"

"Because I love you, and I could see that this really meant a lot to you. More than that specific internship did me. And while some might think that stunt you pulled – having me meet the Rogers' unit buddies – was more than just introducing me to your family like you said but as a way to guilt trip me into stepping aside, I know you," he admitted with a shaky breath, but finding that he couldn't stop, now that he had started, he rambled on, floundering in his attempt to explain himself. "And while you might be a sneaky chit, you're not that manip–"

Peggy threw herself at him, effectively saving him from himself.

They crashed against his dresser, knocking several things to the floor, before they eventually tumbled onto his bed, which she seemed to have been aiming for.

In between kisses – kisses on his mouth, his jaw, his eyelids, his Adam's apple, his collar bones, his sternum – Jack managed to gasp out inanely, "You owe me a lamp – again. It's like the third one that we have killed."

Peggy stopped kissing her way down his body, just long enough to growl out, "Jack, I love you too. Now shut up."

He tried. He really did. But with the things that woman could do, it was no wonder she wasn't the only screamer in their relationship.

~A~

 _One week later..._

Peggy woke – not in a state of utter bliss – but pretty damn near it. She felt as if she might have reached Nirvana. Never before had she been this supremely content. She wanted to wake up every morning like this.

For the past seven days, she had.

Jack was wrapped around her, enveloping her in his warmth. His arm was wrapped around her middle, holding her close to him. His legs were entangled with hers. His chest pressed to her back. His head tucked into her neck. His lips softly caressed her skin with each rise and fall of their chests.

Eventually, he would roll over and sprawl out. She didn't mind his snuggling (she was shocked, truth be told), and she wouldn't become upset at its loss either. She just loved his warm comforting presence in the bed next to her. She had missed it in those few weeks that he had grown distant with her.

She knew that she would miss it when she went to D.C. for her internship. (Hells yeah, she got the internship. Jack had gotten his too. Dooley had announced both last night at the awards dinner, and boy, had they celebrated – chocolate, champagne, and sex, messy saucy sex that necessitated a few more rounds in the shower too. Fuck, yes.)

And she knew that she would miss these mornings, even more so than the amazing orgasm-filled rounds of sex.

This could only mean one thing – she genuinely and truly loved him.

And for the first time ever, that did not terrify her.


	12. The Reunion

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 12: The Reunion

* * *

 _Five or ten years later…_

 ** _Beep! Beep! Beep!_**

Peggy didn't quite wake with a start at the sound of the incessant alarm. But she certainly did when an arm reached across her to slap it silent.

A well-muscled arm. That didn't return to its former position, but instead remained lazily draped over her side and resting on her stomach, all comfortable-like in its peaceful sleepy drowsiness. As if it belonged there.

This arm was attached to a solid, warm male body. A body whose presence in her bed brought about a sense of déjà vu – the worst kind. This was no bizarre sensory memory mind-trick that one laughs off later or even nightmarish glitch in the Matrix moment. This was fucking reality.

 _'He should not be here. He hasn't been here in years…How the bloody Hell did he get here? How did_ I _get here! Again!'_

Before her panic could induce hangover nausea – because, oh yeah, wouldn't that make quite the lasting impression? – she tried to force herself to relax, to not wake the-man-who-should-not-be-here up, and to let the memories come. When she did disentangle herself from him, she would at least not be that drunken bimbo who couldn't remember her one-night stand. She wouldn't.

Eventually, one did come to her.

~.~

 _An arm, Howard's arm, draping over her shoulder…_

"Mr. Jarvis, I do believe you have outdone yourself with this latest hotel," her friend praised expansively, waving about his champagne glass with his other hand to indicate their rather posh but elegant surroundings.

Edwin Jarvis had done an excellent job. The furniture and décor were at a glance top-notch in quality to say the least, and simple and elegant, warm and inviting, to wax poetic at the most. The concierges to the wait staff to the janitorial staff to the security guards, all were professional and competent, just like their boss. And the food was exceptional – who knew that stuffed mushrooms could be mouthwatering?

"Why, thank y– " Jarvis started to reply, but he was cut off by Howard.

"And to think that the Alumni planning committee was going to choose the Marvel-Disney resort over you? They thought an untried establishment was too much of a risk. Bah!" Howard raised his glass in toast, declaring, "Here's to showing those imbeciles what a damn fucking marvelous job you have done hosting their reunion!"

Peggy, Jarvis, and Maria – Howard's executive assistant, top researcher, and first ever steady girlfriend – all raised their glasses, somewhat amusedly at Howard's exuberance.

While Howard was busy swallowing, Jarvis interjected, "Again, thank you, Mr. Stark, for your faith in me and Mrs. Jarvis, and for the start-up capital that made all this possible."

"'Twas no act of faith on my part - at least on Ana's part. I have tasted the products of her culinary skill, but you on the other hand? Managing a luxury hotel? All those employees and whiny, needy guests?" Howard smirked slyly at their friend, while somehow neatly dodging both her elbow jabs and Maria's disapproving looks.

Jarvis, however, only sniffed, and archly replied, "I managed you all those years, didn't I?"

~.~

 _And then there was Rose nudging her shoulder…_

"Who are you searching this crowd for? Because if it is who I think you are, you can relax. He's here, but he does not have a date."

Peggy quit her scan of the other tables' occupants and looked to her former resident advisor who had plopped down in the chair next to her. The woman was as robust and as cheery as ever, and just as undaunted by Peggy's scathing scowls, as she merrily popped a chocolate-covered strawberry into her mouth.

"Bully for him," Peggy dryly remarked, before explaining, "If you must know, I was looking for far more infamous alumni."

"What? Dottie? You expect her to be crazy enough to crash a class reunion filled with multiple law enforcement alumni while she is on the lam?" Rose scoffed in disbelief.

It was Dorothy Underwood, the girl who liked to steal her clothes, even when they weren't roommates anymore, so of course she did. This was also the woman who was such a teacher's pet for Dr. Fenhoff that she helped him do his crazy brainwashing experiments on freshmen – experiments that led to Yauch committing suicide. Peggy also thought she helped him lure Dooley into a trap, when the man began to investigate his colleague's connections to the suicide, but Fenhoff had never confirmed this, according to the interrogation transcripts that she had managed to get her hands on.

Peggy didn't say all of this of course, only giving a non-committal shrug. She didn't need to hear again how paranoid she was of that dastardly woman.

"Well, just so you know, I checked, and Frost is still locked up in her looney-bin, so you don't need to worry about her tonight at least."

Peggy arched an eyebrow and wryly pointed out, "It's really more you than me that needs to be worried about that, isn't it?"

Whitney Frost was another one of their infamous classmates. In fact when the scandal broke out that she had hooked up with a local mafia boss while in pursuit of a scientific breakthrough, a fanatical pursuit that eventually led to her killing her husband and frying her own brain, their class of mostly criminal justice majors had been dubbed the "cops and robbers" class of Lehigh University.

And who uncovered this all and broke the scandal? That's right - investigative journalist Rose Roberts did.

At her question, Rose involuntarily shivered and then mumbled something about dancing and saying hello to Aloysius.

~.~

 _And then enter stage right…_

"Two shots of whiskey. Make mine a double." At her pointed look, Jack amended his order to the bartender, "No, make hers a double too."

Peggy decided to be gracious and not object to his commandeering the barstool next to her. The whiskey bottle he had pointed to was – to use an old school term – Aces.

After he settled himself on the stool next to her, he shot her a sardonic grin, asking wryly, "So how many times have you been told that I don't have a date? Because I think, at least 3 people have blatantly told me that you don't and a half-dozen others have hinted at it. You know – nudge, nudge, wink, wink, and the like."

Peggy shrugged, and then answered his unspoken question – why she didn't have a date.

"My excuse is that I am unofficially working security for Howard and Angie."

It was more or less the truth. With Howard still being his notorious self, despite the fact that he seemed to be settling down with Maria, he needed careful looking after, especially with all the crazies in the world these days. And Angie was now a Broadway star and attracting paparazzi of her own.

Jack hadn't lost any of his perceptiveness, and with his own casual shrug, he generously answered her unspoken question. "There's no girl serious enough that I want to meet my old chums, and if I brought anyone less than serious, they would be jealous of the amount of time I was spending with said chums."

"Fair point," she conceded.

She wanted to ask if that is what he considered them now – 'old chums', but it would take more than a double-shot of fine whiskey to loosen up her tongue _that_ much.

She was still curious though.

Their break up hadn't been explosive, like everyone had predicted. In fact, it had been completely anti-climactic in its civility.

 _"This isn't working."_

 _"Nope."_

 _"We should probably end this."_

 _"Yeah, Marge. We probably should."_

 _"Okay… I'll see you maybe sometime when I am State-side next?"_

 _"…Maybe."_

She wondered if he resented that very civility like she had. She wondered if it had hurt him like it had hurt her that they had drifted so far apart that there were no embers or sparks enough between them to make that volatile finale happen.

She didn't ask though. She was too afraid to open up old wounds, so she went for small talk instead.

"So you still with ATF like Ramirez?"

Jack had gotten into the U.S. Marshalls internship the summer after their junior year, but afterwards, he had decided that if he made a career out of it he would quickly get tired of babysitting criminals who 'sell out bigger fish for a get-out-of-jail-free card'. He had also admitted to her that ATF was 'a small enough pond that it will be easier to get on the fast-track to the top'.

"Nah, after turning over evidence on my boss and partner for being in the pocket of some local arms-dealers, I had to jump ship," he admitted nonchalantly.

As casual and indifferent as he tried to seem to be, he didn't quite meet her eyes and his shoulders betrayed him with their stiffness, as if he was bracing himself for her criticism.

She didn't. All she did was prompt him with a curious, "And which agency-ship was that?"

He snorted slightly as he admitted, "NCIS."

She chuckled, "Ship. Navy. An apropos metaphor. Why them?"

"They offered me the job," he said dismissively, and then in that quiet soft way of his, that let her know when he was sharing a truth about himself that he rarely did with anyone else, he added, "and I get to see the world and honor my grandfather all at the same time."

Before they broke up, she would have reached out and squeezed his hand. If they hadn't broken up, she would have known what his Gam-Gam thought of his new career path. She would have known where he had globe-trotted to, what cases had led him there, what life had been like for him as an Agent-afloat, if he had been an Agent-afloat. She would have known so many things…

Swallowing past the lump of regrets that were threatening to choke her, she asked slowly, "You wouldn't happen to be at the D.C. office branch would you?"

"Yes…" Jack answered hesitantly, picking up on the smirk that was twitching at the corners of her mouth.

That smirk was full-blown when she teased triumphantly, "So you're the latest Navy-cop thorn in my boss's hide!"

"Must not make that big of an impression if he can't include my name in his bitching," Jack mock-grumbled.

"Must not," she shrugged dismissively, before adding with a smug grin, "He just calls you 'pretty boy'."

And, oh bloody hell, did he blush pretty.

She eyed him up and down, remembering how he turned such a rosy shade of scrumptious pink … all over.

She downed her double-shot to cool herself down and ordered another.

~.~

 _An exchange of bastard-boss horror stories followed and then…_

"So, Marge, are you going to Daniel and Violet's wedding?"

"Yes."

She wouldn't miss it for the world. Daniel had struggled to find a woman who could look past his deformity and who could deal with the secretiveness that came with him being a N.S.A. analyst. Violet could. She also called him out on his bullshit tendency to compare women to Peggy like she was some gold standard. If anyone was a gold standard (Peggy didn't think she should be any kind of standard), she would nominate Ana Jarvis, Maria, and then Violet in that order.

"I don't know about you, but me? I am not bringing a date," Jack informed her, seemingly out of the blue.

Knowing that he was fishing to find out if she would be going solo there like she had been here, she deflected by asking, "And what convoluted reasoning do you have for going stag there too?"

"Not convoluted. Simple. Two simple reasons to be precise," he rambled expansively. Jack, when he was a happy tipsy, got broader in his gestures and more verbose in his explanations and story-telling.

"One, the one you might expect – bring a girl to a wedding and she's hearing her own personal wedding bells, but the other is – not so I can get with the bridesmaids, mind you – half of them are Violet's sisters and the other half are Danny's. The female half of the Sousa tribe are a force to be reckoned with and Violet scares the shit out of me."

Peggy laughed. Partly because it was true, and partly because Jack had stage-whispered this so loudly that the happy couple quit staring adoringly into each other's eyes out on the dance floor and began to look around for whoever was talking about them.

She waved them off, even as Jack nonchalantly asked her if she will be bringing a date.

With equal nonchalance, she answered, "No" and declined to give a reason.

"Good," Jack declared with a decisive nod. "That way I don't have to worry about getting a black eye from a jealous bloke when I ask you to dance."

"Who says I would say yes?" she challenged with an amused huff of laughter.

"Wouldn't you, Marge? My dancing skills have improved. I wouldn't step on any of your toes," he wheedled, batting his blue eyes all seductive-like.

No doubt due to the effects of the alcohol, she leaned over and challenged huskily, "Prove it."

~.~

 _Jack swings her out onto the dance floor…_

And from there Peggy is inundated with memories of getting caught up in the music and the moment and the feel of him. His hands at her lower back for the slow dances. His oh-so solid chest beneath her hands, and then later, for the sultrier ones, his arms encircling her middle, pulling her back against that same oh-so solid chest ... And his hands – oh god his hands! – roaming and caressing her...

And then eventually there was the kissing, and then their snogging, and then them spinning off into the darkness…

It got really fuzzy from there but there were a lot of fleeting flashes of them stumbling up some random stairwell, fumbling at her hotel suite door, of frantic stripping of clothes, the death of yet another lamp, and hot _hot_ sweaty sex.

But strangely no words. There were lots of panting gasps, moans and groans, and even a throaty growl or two, but no words.

As soon as that vivid, if disjointed and wordless replay ceased rolling, she couldn't help but think to herself: _'Oh yes Jack, you definitely improved in your dancing skills'._

"Why, thank you, darlin'."

Well, there were words now. Way to go, Peggy.


	13. Overcoming Baggage II

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Chapter 13: Overcoming Baggage II

* * *

 _Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Jack slapped off the alarm and would have rolled over to give Peggy her space, but then he felt her stiffen, so instead he just laid there. He didn't try to draw her closer, soothe her, or make any other move. He played possum and prayed that he could successfully let a hung-over Peggy lie, for if she knew that he was awake, then they would have to talk. If they talked, then they would fight, and if they fought, then this delusion of happiness that he had woken up with would be over.

It was about as sound as his plan had been for how to deal with Carter at the reunion. But when it came to Peggy Carter, he was a man who made the River of Denial his backyard swimming hole.

To be honest, he hadn't really had a detailed plan. It was more like an agenda. He had wanted to go and show them all that his break-up with Peggy had not broken him. He was going to go there and see his brothers. He would flirt with Ramirez's girlfriend, just to rile up the man. He would tell Violet in person more embarrassing stories about Daniel, while the man stood right there and flushed three shades of pink, if not red. And he would exchange small-talk with Peggy, possibly get an autograph from Angie Martinelli, and then move on.

He had achieved all but the last two.

Upon seeing Peggy sitting at the bar in that emerald green number (she had always looked radiant in jewel-tones), the thought to get the vivacious actress's signature flew clear from his head.

It wasn't the first time that he had seen her since their break-up. That 'honor' had gone to Dooley's funeral, where his only thoughts then had been his regret that they were not at a place yet where they could cry on one another's shoulders and drink whiskey late into the night and then get up and seek revenge for the man's death the next day. All that they had been able to do then was look at each other across the grave and nod at each other.

But last night they had done more than exchange awkward small talk. They had drank and chatted congenially and even flirted, and then they had _danced_.

The memories of those curves pressed against his, the friction of their movements, the heat that they generated nearly sent his heart a-thumping, but he was able to rein it in so as not to alert Peggy to his level of consciousness.

If he had been less intoxicated last night, he might have been more gentlemanly and attempted to have dissuaded the equally intoxicated Carter against reliving their college days.

But he hadn't been, and he couldn't say that he regretted it. Not only had he avoided the disaster of offending Peggy by seeming to reject her advances, he had also found evidence that they still had it – that spark that made Jack and Peggy _them_. And if they had the spark, then perhaps it could be fanned into a flame, one that would last longer than their first go around.

Here's to hoping.

When he felt her body relax as she finally got done sorting through whatever she could recall of the night before, he opened his eyes.

And his blue eyes met her beautiful browns, as she asserted, "Oh yeah, you definitely improved in your dancing skills."

"Why, thank you, darlin'."

At the sound of his voice, she flushed with embarrassment and then just as quickly went white with horror. She also sat straight up, clutching the sheet to her bare chest with one hand and what had to be aching and swimming head with the other.

Not wanting to exactly be in a vulnerable position when she recovered enough for her anger to set in, he slowly sat up and gave her a little space. He also tried to hide his smirk when he noticed her tracking the coverage of the sheets over his own naked form and the slight flicker of disappointment she had when they did too good of a job.

He must not have done too good of a job at hiding his smile, because when her roaming gaze tracked up to his face, she scowled and bit out, "This shouldn't have happened."

"Dunno about that, Carter. We are two consenting adults," he mildly pointed out.

"Who didn't work out last time!"

"Because it was no good long distance," he reminded her bitterly, but more optimistically, he added, "But as we learned last night, we're both in D.C. now."

When all that got him was silence, he backtracked with an indifferent shrug (that he didn't at all feel) and said (what he didn't at all want), "And like I said, we're two consenting adults. Just because we had yet another spectacular rut and tumble does not mean that we have to start dating like we did last time."

"You knew it would be no good long distance when we were together in New York. You tried it before with _her_. You knew, and yet you sent me to Europe anyways!"

By now she had shifted to her knees to square off with him and the sheet was in dangerous peril of slipping with each rise and fall of her heaving chest, but this glorious sight of wrathful Peggy was not enough to stem the tide of his own rising anger.

"'Send you'? ' _Send you_ '!" he bellowed. "For one thing, Carter, no one _sends_ you anywhere. For anoth– "

"Fine! 'Strongly encouraged' then!"

"'Encouraged'? Hell yes, I encouraged! What the fuck was I supposed to do, Peggy?" he snarled back. "Be the guy who kept you back from following your dreams? You were offered a chance to make contacts in the international intelligence community, which could give you a leg up in your quest to get transferred to the counter-terrorism division, and I was supposed to ask you to give that up for me?"

"Well, if you thought that you were caught between such a rock and a hard place, why didn't you cut your losses then? Why did you let it drag out so long? You quit trying to make it work long before we ended it," she accused.

The tears that were pooling in her dark eyes did not at all move him. It had become abundantly clear to him now that they were coming not from a place of grief over them, but of resentment towards him. She blamed him. Fuck that.

"You were supposed to come back. After three months at the Paris office, a temporary assignment while someone was out on maternity leave, and then you were supposed to come back. But you accepted the transfer to the Berlin office, without talking about it with me first," he accused back with far more raw remembered pain than anger leaking into his voice than he would have liked.

He stared at his clenched fists, unable to look at her anymore, even as she tried to defend, "But you never – you could have – _Why_ didn't you say anything then?"

"Why bother? You had promised that it was another short-term assignment and you were so excited about it. So I thought I could wait it out _again_. And I waited, Peggy. I waited for you to come home, to talk of wanting to come home – to me. But when you never did…" he drifted off, his voice flat and as stoic and as bitter as it had been all those years ago.

He expected her to be rebuffed by his resignation, to accept the futility of it all like he had all those years ago, and to do what she had done then – walk out on them.

But he had once again underestimated Peggy Carter.

Into the silence, she whispered, "I waited for you to ask me."

This brought his head up, and when he looked at her face, he saw tears streaming down her cheeks, her nose red, her eyes puffy, and her mouth twisted into that this-shit-is-so-not-funny sardonic smile of hers, and he couldn't help but laugh, (bitterly that is.)

"What a pair of fucking fools, we are, Marge."

She punched him, and hissed, "I'm still waiting."

He grabbed her abusive hand with one of his own, while his other whipped out to tug her closer to him. When her chest was pressed against his and her face inches from his own, he breathed, "Come home with me, Peggy. I want you to be mine again, but this time forever and always."

He stared beseechingly into her eyes, searching for any hint of panic. He might have been too fast, too strong, but he didn't know how else to be with her. When he hadn't been, she had slipped through his fingers.

But there wasn't any panic. There was just her dark eyes hungrily searching his, her free hand snaking up to grab the back of his neck to tug his lips closer to hers, where her mouth was breathing one beautiful word – "Yes."

~A~

She said yes.

As soon as she said it, that coil that had been twisting up her gut every time she thought of him, of them, came undone.

It must have for him too. Because not only had his tensed shoulders relaxed, but his mouth had crashed against hers in a heated kiss that put all others that they had shared (at least from what she could remember of last night) to shame.

His hands clutched at her feverishly. His weight propelled her onto her back. His hungry lips never leaving hers.

When she tried to flip their position, he shifted his grip on her hand at his chest so that their fingers were interlocked and then he raised them above her head, pressing her more firmly back into the rumpled covers by his upper body weight alone.

She whimpered, but not at his remaining on top, but at the fact that with him holding her like this, she had nothing to arch or grind against.

He chuckled evilly, even as he corrected their positions. Well, he corrected it in that he was now rubbing his erection between her lower lips, but his mouth was no longer kissing hers – or any part of her for that matter.

And the space was too much, especially after having years of it.

"You're not a goddamn see-saw, Jack!" she snarled as she futilely tried to draw him back down to her with her free hand or even grind herself harder against him.

He took some pity on her and began to kiss along her jaw-line, along her neck to that sweet spot that always made her bones melt and then –

He stopped.

"Jack!"

He hovered there and breathed, "Say. It. Again."

"Oh God. Yes, Jack! Yes…just please," she begged with her words and her body.

But all he did was grind against her a little harder, hover over her a little more, and hiss, "Yes and?"

"And what?!"

"And what is it that you want?" One long lazy lick from collar bone to ear. One darkly ordered, "Tell me."

She couldn't. All she could do was utter a primal keen of need. Because all she could think about was how much she wanted him in her, his mouth on her, his hot skin sliding against hers.

"I am waiting."

Those three words broke her, and she cried, "Yes, I want to be yours! And – and I want you to be mine."

"Always," and with that he was thrusting up and into her, his lips and teeth were sucking _right there_ , and he was hitting her just right there. Again. And again. And again.

And she was nothing but a moaning mess. Her legs drawing him in closer. Her body arching towards his. Her free hand roaming, caressing wherever she could touch, holding him to her, holding him right there. Her inner-muscles tightening around him every time it seemed he was drawing himself too far out.

He never did though. He always thrust back in harder and faster than before. And with every drive home, she gasped, moaned, whimpered: "Always", "Yours", "Forever", "Mine," or "Yes, Jack, always!"

Her words and her spasming greedy body sent him over the edge. He spilled into her with a roar of " _MARGE!_ " or " _MINE!_ " she couldn't be quite sure over her own victorious and satisfied keening shout.

He collapsed on top of her and only made a half-hearted attempt to move off, which she stopped (and could stop now that she had both of her hands). She didn't mind his weight. In fact, she welcomed it because he was here with her, and not just as a fucking blast from the past.

Eventually, the pounding of her heart slowed and her panting gasps quietened enough to hear his lower murmurs into her neck:

"Gods, I love you, Marge…Don't leave me again…please? I love you so much…"

She had let him go once before because she had thought that there hadn't been enough love between them to hurt him this much. He had acted so indifferent, so aloof about their extended separation, that she had assumed that he must not have cared as much as he had, so she had forced herself to quit caring too. Crikey, she had never been more wrong.

She tightened her hold on him and breathed, "No, Jack. Never… I love … too … never again."


	14. Epilogue: Rude Awakenings

**Sparks, Flames, Embers**

* * *

Epilogue: Rude Awakenings

* * *

 _Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz!_

"Ugh. Carter, I am going to shoot your phone."

"…-truction of gover- … prop'ty… felony…'sides, not …phone," mumble-grumbled Peggy into her pillow. "Mine sounds like – "

 _Bzz-Bzzz. Bzz-Bzzz. Bzz-Bzzz._

"Bullocks."

Peggy tossed Jack's phone to him before looking at her own screen, and then she was shooting out of bed and digging into the nearest box with clean pants.

And Jack was doing the same.

"I have a dead sailor bobbing in the Potomac. You?"

Peggy sighed, "I'm being told to haul ass to my rendezvous point, to standby for an undercover op."

Jack didn't ask which one. Technically, he shouldn't know, but he knew that she had been on standby three times for her trafficking ring case, only to be called off at the last minute. She had complained each and every time and then some of her distaste for 'hurry up and wait' orders, she was sure.

Later, after they got done brushing their teeth over their new his-and-hers sinks and completing their other toiletry routines, what he did ask her was, "Are you going to be home tonight, you think?"

"Probably not," she replied resignedly, and then pointing to the golden black woven striped tie that he had been debating over, she said, "That one."

He tossed the red paisley tie aside, and challenged with a grin, "First one home gets to crack open that bottle of cab that Jarvis gave us as a house-warming gift."

"Deal," Peggy agreed, and added with a smirk of her own, "I may even leave you some."

"Ha!" Jack scoffed, knowing (admittedly as much as she did) that he had a better track record of knowing when to call it quits for the night.

She wasn't offended by his reaction. In fact, that knowing grin of his that he shot her in the mirror while he struggled to knot his tie sent all kinds of warm-fuzzies throughout her body. He knew her, and he accepted her – workaholic traits and all.

In that moment, she did what had to be done. She grabbed him, finished knotting his tie for him, and then used it to pull him down for a long, slow kiss, at the end of which, she leaned her forehead against his and murmured breathily, "Love you."

He rubbed his nose against hers, and breathily whispered right back, "Love you too, Marge."

~A~

 _Kawoosh!_

 _*cough, cough*_ "Ugh." _*cough, cough, cough*_ "Oh god."

These and other less than pleasant retching sounds woke Jack up in the middle of the night.

He stumbled out of bed and headed to the kitchen, filling up two glasses of water (one for rinsing and one for actually drinking) before heading to the bathroom. Once there, he stood in the doorway and blearily assessed the situation.

Peggy was on her knees, slumped over the porcelain throne and clinging to it like it was a life preserver as she dry-heaved and gagged. Her face was pale, her skin looked clammy, her dark curls were in frizzy disarray, her eyes were puffy with dark circles beneath them, and there was something reddish at the corner of her mouth that he really didn't want to know the name of.

He had never found her more attractive.

And it had nothing to do with the fact that her lingerie in the past few weeks had gotten a bit too small in the bust area – well… _not entirely._

It had everything to do with the reason for that snug fit and current ralphing. Hint: the latter wasn't due to the flu, food poisoning, or one crazy night of drinking, which would have been the top 3 reasons until a few weeks ago.

"Somehow, I find that hot. I guess that means we should get married."

Peggy raised her head up just enough to shoot him her patented _'Are-you-shitting-me?'_ glare before hurling yet again.

He wasn't sure if it was because that was perhaps the worst proposal ever or because she doubted her ability to be sexy in her current state or both. He was sure he would hear about it tomorrow though.

In the meantime, he set aside the water glasses and went over to hold back her hair. He did so silently of course, for Peggy in this state found whatever he said to be worth strangling him over and by the looks of it, she didn't want to hear what he was currently thinking.

 _'She's so fucking gorgeous…I am going to be a father, and she's my baby-mama…and that is SO mother-fucking (ha ha) hot…and not because I have a pregnant woman fetish…but all of this just makes me want her more…love her more…How is that even possible? But I am never going to feel about anyone like this ever again so why not tie the knot?_

When she was done, had rinsed, and rehydrated, Jack wrapped his arms around her, rubbed her spasming back soothingly, and bravely whispered, "I love you, Mama Marge."

"I know," she hoarsely chuckled. "And not" she rubbed her slightly showing bump up against his erection, "because of this."

"God, I hope not," he huffed.

They sat in silence, holding each other while they sat on the cool bathroom tile, in the dark. His thoughts of granny panties, of Samberly in nothing but his lab coat, or of really anything remotely un-sexy were interrupted by Peggy's softly whispered, "Ahem, Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"If you were to ever properly ask _that_ question, er, I would, er, say yes."

"Okay. Peggy – "

"Not tonight!" she hastily interrupted, but softening just enough to add wistfully, "But someday, Jack."

"Okay…" he swallowed nervously, mostly because his heart was full to bursting. Eventually, he managed to softly murmur into her hair, "Good to know."

And it was. It so was.

~A~

 _"Waah! Waah! Waaaahhh!"_ went the baby monitor.

And of course so did the baby. Their baby. The she-devil of a child who was bound and determined to rob them of their sleep and their sanity.

Peggy felt somewhat guilty for no longer being that mother who raced out of bed at the first whimper of her baby and not only that but snuggling deeper into the covers with each wail.

But it was the _fifth_ time that night. She had been fed – twice. And changed. And been rocked and sung to, alternatively by both her and Jack. And she wasn't running a fever or showing any other signs of illness… _So why, dear God, why was she still crying?_

Peggy was gearing up to roll out of bed, but Jack beat her to the punch (not literally). He pushed her gently back down and whispered, "Go back to sleep, Peg. I got this."

With a sigh of relief, she sunk back down. She didn't put up any kind of fuss, because she knew that he so did.

As she lay there quietly listening to the baby monitor, she counted her blessings.

Jack had been there with her every step of the way, even as he had been there for their son. He had fought to get paternity leave so he could be there at the birth and in the weeks afterwards, to help out. He changed more than his fair-share of the diapers. He got up when she fussed, even if it was just to sit with her while she fed their voracious daughter. He helped wrangle their son in the mornings or took him outside so 'Mommy and baby can have their nap' in the afternoons.

And right now he was turning the she-devil's frown upside down and the two of them were cooing and gurgle-laughing away at each other.

Peggy was never more jealous of the charming bastard than she was right then.

Except when in the next few minutes, over the monitor she could hear soft baby snores.

 _How the hell did he manage to do that?_

When Jack crawled back into bed next to her, she managed to keep her grumblings to: "So why – " _*yawn*_ " – was she crying?"

"That dumb star-spangled teddy bear of hers fell to the floor."

"The one Howard gave her and he calls 'Stevie'?"

There was a rumbled response into the pillow next to her that sounded like 'Are there two dumb such bears?', but she couldn't be quite sure. She didn't deign his ridiculous resentment of baby stuffed-toys with a reaction however. Instead, she voiced what she had been thinking for the past few minutes: "Thank you, Jack."

When he didn't respond, she thought he had drifted off back to sleep, but just as she was about to do the same, his arm was snaking out to pull her into his side.

And when she was neatly tucked up against him, he kissed her cheek and murmured contentedly into her hair, "Happy Anniversary, sweetheart."

 _~And so they lived happily for the most of their days, sleep-deprived and all~_

* * *

 **A/N:** a bit of cute fluffiness for the epilogue after some angsty chapters. I never can seem to resist. And as always, I hope you enjoyed.

Please, let me know what you think I could have improved on or what your favorite parts were. - Love, MVM


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